Considering the studies carefully the huge question again is
Aurangzeb had less reason to distrust the stability of his dominion
than why did he surmount all his armies into the field that
annihilated the forces of the empire further and the resources of
Marwar were reduced to as low an ebb as they are at the present time
Recent investigation has thrown much new height on the origin of the
Rajputs. between the Vedic Kshatriya and the Rajput of medieval times
which it is now impossible to bridge. Understanding the roots is very
important for all of mankind. As the roots will lead us rightly to
know of our origins.Some clans, trace their lineage to the Kshatriyas
of Buddhist times, who recognized as one of the leading elements in
Hindu society, and, in their own estimation, stood even higher than
the Brahmans.
But it is now certain that the origin of many clans dates from the
Saka or Kushan invasion, which began about the middle of the second
century B.C., or more certainly, from that of the Huns who destroyed
the Gupta empire about A.D. 480.
The Gurjara tribe adopted Hinduism, and their leaders formed the
main stock from which the higher Rajput families sprang. When these
new claimants to princely honours accepted the faith and institutions
of Brahmanism, the attempt would naturally be made to initiate
themselves to the mythical heroes whose exploits are recorded in the
MAHABHARATA AND RAMAYANA.
Hence arose the body of legend recorded in The Annals by a fabulous
origin from the Sun or Moon is ascribed to two great Rajput branches,
a genealogy claimed by other princely families, like the Incas of Peru
or the Mikado of Japan. Or, as in the case of the Rathors of Marwar,
an equally fabulous story was invented to link them with the royal
house of Kanauj, one of the genuine old Hindu ruling families.
The same feeling lies at the root of the Aeneid of Virgil, the court
poet of the new empire. The clan of the emperor Augustus, the
patriachician family of Alban origin, represented as the heirs of
lulus, the supposed sou of Aeneas and founder of Alba Longa, thus
linking the new Augustan .
Than a sudden emergence of semi-darkness induced constant serpent
worship, which, years ago speculative writers mixed it up with occult
philosophies, juridical mysteries, and that pretentious nonsense
called the ' Arkite symbolism,'
In the midst of this there is a constant reference to the "
Takshaks," apparently one of the Scythian tribes. There is, however,
every reason to belive that serpent worship formed an important
element in the beliefs of the Scythians, or to suppose that the cult,
as we observe it in India, is of other than origin.
The term Kshatriya was, vague meaning, since it did not claim Brahmin
descent. Remember Kshatriya is the warrior cult and knowledge is
brahmanical. Occasionally a Raja might be a Brahman by caste, but the
Brahman's place at court was that of a minister rather than that of
king."
HOWEVER HERE THIS POST IS OCCUPIED BY MEMBERS OF THE BANIA OR
MERCANTILE CLASS, BECAUSE THE BRAHMANS OF THE DESERT, BY THEIR LACK OF
DISCIPLINE OF PRACTICE, WERE ILLITERATE.
Now the Kshatriya or Rajput depended on status rather than on
descent, and it was therefore possible for foreigners to be introduced
into the tribes without any violation of the prejudices of caste,
which was then only partially developed. But as the power of the
priesthood increased, it was necessary to disguise this admission of
foreigners initiated a convenient fiction.
HENCE AROSE THE LEGEND, TOLD IN TWO DIFFERENT FORMS IN THE ANNALS,
WHICH DESCRIBES HOW,BY A SERIOUS ACT OF PURIFICATION OR INITIATION,
UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF ONE OF THE ANCIENT VEDIC RISHIS OR
INSPIRED SAINTS, THE SO CALLED " FIRE-BORN " SECTS WERE CREATED TO
HELP THE BRAHMANS IN REPRESSING BUDDHISM, JAINISM, OR OTHER
FREESTANDING THE ANCIENT TRADITIONAL HINDU SOCIAL CULTURE , THE
TEMPORARY DOWNFALL OF WHICH, UNDER THE STRESS OF FOREIGN INVASIONS, IS
CAREFULLY CONCEALED IN THE HINDU SACRED LITERATURE.
This privilege was, we are told, confined to four sects, known as
Agnikula or ' fire-born '—the PRAMAR, PARIHAR, CHALUKYA OR SOLANKI,
AND THE CHAUHAN. However there is good reason to belive according to
author that the Pramar was the only sect which laid claim to this
distinction before the time of the poet Chand, who flourished in the
twelfth century of our era.
That these races, the sons of Agni, were but regenerated, and
converted by the Brahm'ans to fight their battles, the clearest
interpretations of their allegorical history will disclose ;
It was in S. 987 (a.d. 931) that Bhojraj, the last of the Chawaras,
and the Salic law of India were both set aside, to make way for the
young Solanki, Mulraj* who ruled Anhilwara for the space
• of fifty-eight years.
During the reign of his son and successor, Chamimd Rae, Mahmud of
Ghazni carried his desolatiag arms into the kingdom of Anhilwara.
With its wealth he raised those magnificent trophies of his conquest,
among which the ' Celestial Bride ' might have vied with anything ever
erected by man as a monument of folly . The wealth abstracted, as
reported in the history of the conquerors, though deemed incredible,
would obtain belief, if the commercial riches of Anhilwara could be
appreciated. It was to India what Venice was to Europe, the potent of
the products of both the eastern and western hemispheres.
It fully recovered the shock given by Mahmud and the desultory wars of
his successors ; and we find Siddharaja Jayasingha, the seventh from
the founder, at the head of the richest, if not the most warlike,
kingdom of India.
ANHILWARA
Two-and-twenty principalities at one time owned his power, from the
CARNATIC TO THE BASE OF THE HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS ; but his unwise
successor drew upon himself the vengeance of the Chauhan, Prithviraja,
a slip of which race was en grafted in the person of Kumarapala, on
the genealogical tree of the Solankis ; and it is a curious fact that
this dynasty of the Balakaraes alone gives us two examples of the
Salic law of India being violated. KUMARAPALA, WAS INSTALLED ON THE
THRONE OF ANHILWARA, ' TIED ROUND HIS HEAD THE TURBAN OF THE SOLANKI.'
HE BECAME OF THE TRIBE INTO WHICH HE WAS ADOPTED. KUMARAPALA, AS WELL
AS SIDDHARAJA, WAS THE PATRON OF BUDDHISM ; * AND THE MONUMENTS
ERECTED UNDER THEM and their successors claim our admiration, from
their magnificence and the perfection of the arts ; for at no period
were they more cultivated than at the courts of Anhilwara.
The lieutenants of Shihabu-d-din disturbed the close of Kumarapal's
reign ; and his successor, Balo Muldeo, closed this dynasty in S. 1284
(a.d. 1228), when a new dynasty, called the Vaghela (descendants of
Siddharaja) under BIsaldeo, succeeded.
The dilapidations from religious persecution were repaired ; Somnath,
renowned as Delphos of old, rose from its ruins, and the kingdom of
the Balakaraes was attaining its pristine magnificence, when, under
the fourth prince Karandeva.
The angel of destruction appeared in the shape of Alau-d-din, and the
kingdom of AnhilwAra was annihilated.
THE LIEUTENANTS OF THE TATAR DESPOT OF DELHI LET LOOSE THE SPIRIT OF
INTOLERANCE AND AVARICE ON THE RICH CITIES AND FERTILE PLAINS OF
GUJARAT AND SAURASHTRA TOO . IN CONTEMPT OF THEIR FAITH, THE ALTAR OF
AN ISLAMITE DARVESH WAS PLACED IN CONTACT WITH THE SHRINE OF ADINATH,
ON THE MOST ACCESSIBLE OF THEIR SACRED MOUNTS : THE STATUES OF BUDDHA
[THE JAIN TIRTHANKARAS WERE THROWN DOWN, AND THE BOOKS CONTAINING THE
MYSTERIES OF THEIR FAITH SUFFERED THE SAME FATE AS THE ALEXANDRIAN
LIBRARY.
The walls of Anhilwara were demolished ; its foundations excavated,
and again filled up with the fragments of their ancient temples.
The remnants of the Solanki dynasty were scattered over the land, and
this portion of India remained for upwards of a century without any
paramount head, until, by a singular dispensation of Providence, its
splendour was renovated, and its foundations rebuilt, by an adventurer
of the same race from which the Agnikulas were originally converts,
though Saharan the Tak hid his name and his tribe under his new
epithet of Zafar Khan, and as Muzaffar ascended the throne of Gujarat,
which he left to his son. This son was Ahmad, who founded Ahmadabad,
whose most splendid edifices were built from the ancient cities around
it.
Baghels.
—Though the stem of the Solankis was thus uprooted, yet was it not
before many of its branches (Sakha), like their own indigenous
bar-tree, had fixed themselves in other soils. The most prominent of
these is the Baghela * family, which gave its name to an entire
division of Hindustan ; and Bagtielkhand lias now been ruled for many
centuries by the descendants of Siddharaja.
Besides Bandhugarh, tliere are minor chieftains still in Gujarat of
the Baghela tribe. Of these, Pethapur and Tharad are the most
conspicuous. One of the chieftains of the second class in Mewar is a
Solanki, and traces his line immediately from Siddharaja : this is the
chief of Rupnagar, whose stronghold commands one of the passes leading
to Marwar, and whose family annals would furnish a fine picture of the
state of border-feuds. Few of them, till of late years, have died
natural deaths.
The Solanki is divided into sixteen branches].
Baghela—Raja of Baghelkhand (capital Bandhugarh),
Raos of Pitapur, Tharad, and Adalaj, etc.
Birpura—Rao of Lunawara.
Bahala—Kalyanpur in Mewar, styled Rao, but serving the chief of
Salumbar oil" Baru, Tekra, and Chahir, in Jaisalmer.
Kalacha ^ J Langaha—^Muslims about Multan.
Togra—-Muslims in the Panjnad.
Brika— ,, „
Surki—In Deccan.
Sarwaria '—Girnar in Saurashtra.
. Raka—Toda in Jaipur.
Ranakia—Desuri in Mewar.
Kharara—Alota and Jawara, in Malwa.
Tantia—Chandbhar Sakanbari.*
Almecha—No land.
Kalamor—Gujarat.^
Pratihara or Parihara.—Of this, the last and least of _the Agnikulas,
we have not much to say.
The Pariharas never acted a conspicuous part in the history of
Rajasthan. They are always discovered in a subordinate capacity,
acting in feudal subjection to the Turks of Delhi or the Chauhans of
Aimer ; and the brightest page of their history is the record of an
abortive attempt of Nahar Rao to maintain his independence against
Prithwiraja.
THOUGH A PRITHVIRAJ CHAUHAN
A BIG FAILURE, HAS IMMORTALIZED HIS NAME
AND GIVEN TO THE SCENE OF ACTION, ONE OF THE PASSES OF THE ARAVALLI,
A MERITED CELEBRITY.
Mandor (classically Maddodara) was the capital of the Parihars, and
was the chief city of Marwar which owned the sway of this tribe prior
to the invasion and settlement of the Rathors. It is placed five miles
northward of the modern Jodhpur, and preserves some specimens of the
ancient Pali character, fragments of sculpture and Jain temples. The
Rathor emigrant princes of Kanauj found an asylum with the Parihars.
They repaid it by treachery, and Chonda, a name celebrated in the
Rathor annals, dispossessed the last of the Parihars, and pitched the
flag of the Rathors on the battlements of Mandor.
THE POWER OF THE PARIHARS HAD, HOWEVER, BEEN MUCH REDUCED PREVIOUSLY
BY THE PRINCES OF MEWAR, WHO NOT ONLY ABSTRACTED MUCH TERRITORY FROM
THEM, BUT ASSUMED THE TITLE OF ITS PRINCES—RANA.^
The Parihara scattered over Rajasthan, but the existence of
independent chieftainship there. At the confluence of the Kuhari, the
Sind, and the Chambal, there is a colony of this race, which has given
its name to a commune of twenty-four villages, besides hamlets,
situated amidst the ravines of these streams.
They were nominally subjects of Sindhia ; but it was deemed requisite
for the line of defence along the Chambal that it should be included
within the British demarcation, by which most notorious body of
thieves in the annals of Thug history.
The Parihars had twelve subdivisions, of which the chief were the
Indha and Sindhal : a few of both are still to be found about the
banks of the Luni.
Chawara or Chaura.—This tribe was once renowned in the history of
India, though its name is now scarcely known Ti, or only in the
chronicles of the bard. The origin of it was
- ignorance.
It belongs neither to the Solar nor Lunar race, and consequently
presumed to be of the Scythic Orgin
The name is unknown in Hindustan, and is confined, with many others
originating from beyond the Indus, to the peninsula of Saurashtra. If
foreign to India proper, its establishment must have been at a remote
period, as we find individuals of it intermarrying with the Suryavansa
ancestry of the present princes of Mewar, when this family were the
lords of Valabhi.
The capital of the Chawaras was the insular Deobandar, on the coast of
Saurashtra, and the celebrated temple of Sonmath, with many others on
this coast, dedicated to Balnath, or the sun, is attributed to this
tribe of the Sauras,* or worshippers of the sun ; most probably the
generic name of the tribe as well as of the peninsula.*
By a natural catastrophe, or as the Hindu superstitious chroniclers
will have it, as a punishment for the piracies of the prince of Deo,
the element whose privilege he abused rose and overwhelmed his
capital. As all this coast is very low, such an occurrence is not
improbable ; though the abandonment of Deo might have been compelled
by the irruptions of the Arabians, who at this period carried on a
trade with these parts, and the plunder of some of their vessels may
have brought this punishment on the Chawaras. That it was owing to
some such political catastrophe, we have additional grounds for belief
from the annals of Mewar, which state that its princes inducted the
Chawaras into the seats of the power they abandoned on the continent
and peninsula of Saurashtra.
At all events, the prince of Deo laid the foundation of Anhilwara
Patan in S. 802 (a.d. 74.6), which henceforth became the capital city
of this portion of India, in lieu of Valabhipura, which gave the title
of Balakaraes to its princes, the Balhara of the earlier Arabian
travellers, and following them, the geographers of Europe."
Vana Raja (or, in the dialects, Banraj) was this founder, and his
dynasty ruled for one hundred and eighty-four years, when, as related
in the sketch of the Solanki tribe, Bhojraj, the seventh from the
founder, was deposed by his nephew.
It was during this dynasty that the Arabian travellers ^ visited this
court, of which they have left but a confused picture. We are not,
however, altogether in darkness regarding the Chawara race, as in the
Khuman Raesa, one of the chronicles of Mewar, mention is made of the
auxiliaries under a leader named Chatansi, in the defence of Chitor
against the first attack on record of the Muhammadans
.
When Mahmud of Ghazni invaded Saurashtra and captured its capital,
Anhilwara, he deposed its and placed upon the throne, according to
Ferishta, a prince of the former dynasty, renowned for his ancient
line and purity of blood, and who is styled Dabichalima ; a name which
has puzzled all European commentators.
Now the Dabhi ...........................was a celebrated tribe, said
by some to be a branch of the Chawara, and this therefore may be a
compound of Dabhi Chawara, or the Chaurasima, by some called a branch
of the ancient Yadus.
This ancient connexion between the Surya\ansi cliiefs and the
Chawaras, or Sauras, of Saurashtra, is still maintained after a lapse
of more than one thousand years ; for although an alliance with the
Rana's family is deemed the highest honour that a Hindu prince can
obtain, as being the first in rank in Rajasthan, yet is the humble
Chawara sought out, even at the foot of fortune's ladder, whence to
carry on the blood of Rama. The present heir-apparent of a line of '
one hundred kings,' the prince Jawan Singh [1828-38], is the offspring
of a Chawara mother, the daughter of a petty chieftain of Gujarat. It
were vain to give any account of the present stale of the families
bearing this name. They must depend upon the fame of past days ; to
this we leave them.
Tak or Takshak
Takshak appears to be the generic term of the race from which the
various Scythic tribes, the early invaders of India, branched off. It
appears of more ancient sakha.
It might not be judicious to separate them, though it would be
speculative to say which was the primitive title of the races called
Scythic, after their country, Sakatai or Sakadwipa, the land of the
great Getae.
Abul Ghazi makes Taunak^ the son of Turk or Targetai, who appears to
be the Turushka of the Puranas, the Tukyuks of the Chinese historians,
the nomadic Tokhari of Strabo, who aided to overturn the Greek kingdom
of Bactria, and gave their name to the grand division of Asia,
Tokharistan or Turkistan : and there is every appearance of that
singular race, tlie Tajik,* still scattered over these regions, and
whose history appears a mystery, being the descendants of the Takshak.
Also the ancient inscriptions in Pali or Buddhist character have been
discovered in various parts of Rajasthan, of the race called Tasta,
Takshak, and Tak, relating to the tribes, the Mori [or Maurya],
Pramara, their descendants.
Naga and Takshak in Sanskrit refers to the snake, and the Takshak is
the celebrated Nagvansa of the early heroic history of India.
The Mahabharata describes in its usual style, the wars between the
Pandavas of Indraprastha and the Takshaks of the north.
The assassination of Parikshita by the Takshak, and the exterminating
warfare carried when Alexander invaded India, he found the Paraitakai,
the mountain Tak, inhabiting
The early History
The Bhatti princes of Jaisalmer, when driven from kabulistan, they
dispossessed the Taks on the Indus, and established themselves in
their land, the capital of which was called Salivahanpura ; and as the
date of this event is given as 3008 of the Yudhishthira era, it is by
no means unlikely that Salivahana, or Salbhan (who was a Takshak), the
conqueror of the Tuar Vikrama, was of the very family dispossessed by
the Bhattis, who compelled them to migrate to the south.
The calculated period of the invasion of the Takshaks, or . Nagvansa,
under Sheshnag, is about six or seven centuries before the Christian
era, at which very period the Scythic invasion of Egypt and Syria, "
by the sons of Togarmah riding on horses " (the Aswas, or Asi), is
alike recorded by the prophet Ezekiel and Diodorus.
The Abu Mahatma calls the Takshaks " the sons of Himachal," all
evincing Scythic descent ; and it was only eight reigns anterior to
this change in the Lunar dynasties of India, that Parsvanath, the
twenty-third Buddha [Jain Tirthankara], introduced his tenets into
India, and fixed his abode in the holy mount Sarnet.
The Division of India
Janamejaya, who at last compelled them to sign tributary engagements,
divested of its allegory,' is plain historical fact the grand division
of Asia, Tokharistan or Turkistan : and there is every appearance of
that singular race, Tajik still scattered over these regions, and
whose history appears a mystery, being the descendants of the Takshak.
It has been already observed, that ancient inscriptions in t)ie Pali
or Buddhist character have been discovered in various parts of
Rajasthan, of the race called Tasta, Takshak, and Tak, relating to the
tribes, the Mori [or Maurya], Pramara, their descendants.
The Balhara of Arab travellers of the tenth century were the
Rashtrakuta dynasty of Malkhed, Balhara being a corruption of
Vallabharaja,
Vallabha being the royal title {BG, i. Part ii. 209).] [Vanaraja
reigned from a.d. 765 to 780, and the dynasty is said to have lasted
196 years, but the evidence is still incomplete.
Muhammadan Dynasties of Gujarat, 32 ff.]
Much of the account is mere tradition, but it has been plausibly
suggested that when Bhima the Chaulukya king of Anhilwara was defeated
by Mahmud of Ghazni in a.d. 1024, the latter may have appointed
Durlabha, uncle of Bhima, to keep order in Gujarat, and that the two
Dabshalims may be identified with Durlabha and his son [BG, i. Part i.
168). Also see Ferishta i. 76 ; Bayley,
Abulghazi [Hist, of the Turks, Moguls, and Tartars, 1730, i. 5 f .]
says, when Noah left the ark he divided the earth amongst his three
sons : Shem had Iran : Japhet, the country of ' Kuttup Shamach,' the
name of the regions between the Caspian Sea and India.
There he lived two hundred and fifty years. He left eight sons, of
whom Turk was the elder and the seventh Camari, supposed the Gomer of
Scripture. Turk had four sons ; the eldest of whom was Taunak, the
fourth from whom was Mogul, a corruption of Mongol, signifying sad,
whose successors made the Jaxartes their winter abode.
[The word means ' brave ' (Howorth, Hist, of the Mongols, i. 27).]
UNDER HIS REIGN NO TRACE OF THE TRUE RELIGION REMAINED : IDOLATRY
REIGNED EVERYWHERE. AGHUZ KHAN SUCCEEDED. THE ANCIENT CIMBRI, WHO WENT
WEST WITH ODIN'S HORDE OF JATS, CHATTIS, AND SU , WERE PROBABLY THE
TRIBES DESCENDED FROM CAMARI, THE SON OF TURK.
Tacash continued to be a proper name with the great Khans of Kharizm
(Chorasmia) until they adopted the faith of Muhammad. The father of
Jalal, the foe of Jenghiz Khan, was named Tacash.
Tashkent on the Jaxartes, the capital of Turkistan, may be derived
from the name of the race. Bayer says, " Tocharistan was the region of
the Tochari, who were • the ancient Tijxapoi (Tochari), or
Taxcipot(TachaA'oi)." Amraianus Marcellinus says, " many nations obey
the Bactrians, whom the Tochari surjoass t
This singular race, the Tajiks, are repeatedly mentioned by Mr.
Elpliinstone in his admirable account of the kingdom of Kabul. They
are also particularly noticed as monopoHsing the commercial
transactions of the kingdom of Bokhara, in that interesting work.
[The term Tajik means the settled population, as opposed to the Turks
or tent-dM'ellers.
It is the same word as Tazi, ' Arab,' still surviving in the name of
the Persian greyhound, which was apparently introduced by the Arabs.
Sykes (HIST, OF PERSIA, II. 153, NOTE) and Skrine-Ross {The Heart of
Asia, 3, 364 note) state that the Tajiks represent the Iranian branch
of the Aryans.
The Mahabharata describes this warfare against the snakes literally :
of which, in one attack, he seized and made a burnt-ofering (hom) of
twenty thousand. It is surprising that the Hindu will accept these
things literally.
It might be said he had but a choice of difficulties, and that it
would be as impossible for any human being to make the barbarous
sacrifice of twenty thousand of his species, as it would be difficult
to find twenty thousand snakes for the purpose.
The author's knowledge of what barbarity will inflict leaves the fact
of the human sacrifice, though not perhaps to this extent, not even
improbable. In 1811 his duties called him to a survey amidst the
ravines of the Chambal, the tract called Gujargarh, a district
inhabited by the Gujar tribe. Turbulent and independent, like the sons
of Esau, their hand against every man and every man's hand against
them, their nominal prince, SurajmaU, the Jat chief of Bharatpur,
pursued exactlj' the same plan towards the population of these
villages, whom they captured in a night attack, that Janamejaya did to
the Takshaks : he threw them into pits with combustibles, and actually
thus consumed them !
This occurred not three-quarters of a century ago.
Arrian says that his name was Omphis [Ambhi], and that his father
dying at this time, he did homage to Alexander, who invested him with
the title and estates of his father Taxiles.
Hence, perhaps (from Tak), the name of the Indus, Attak ; [?] not
Atak, or ' forbidden,' according to modern signification, and which
has only been given since the Muhammadan religion for a time made it
the boundary between the two faiths. [All these speculations ]
In Bihar, during the reign of Pradyota, the successor of Ripunjaya.
Parsva's symbol is the serpent of Takshak. His doctrines spread to the
remotest parts of India, and the princes of Valabhipura of Ma'ndor and
Anhilwara all held to the tenets of Buddha. [As usual, Jains are confounded
with Buddhists. There is no reason to beheve that the Nagas, a
serpent-wor.shipping tribe, were not indigenous in India.]
THE FIRST BUDHA IS THE PARENT OF THE LUNAR RACE, A.C. 2250.
THE SECOND (TWENTY-SECOND OF THE JAINS), NEMNATH, A.C. 1120.
THE THIRD (TWENTY-THIRD DO. ), PARSAWANATH, A.C. 650.
THE FOURTH (TWENTY-FOURTH DO. ), MAHIVIRA, A.C. 533.
Most ancient inscriptions Pali character, discovered wherever the
Buddhist rehgion prevailed, their being declared of the race of Tasta
or Takshak, warrants the Agnikulas to be of this same race, which
invaded India about two centuries before Christ.
FALSE EYEWASH
It was about this period that Parsvanatha the twenty-third Buddha,
appeared in India ; his symbol, the serpent. The legend of the snake
(Takshak) escaping wife the celebrated work Pingala, which was
recovered by Garuda, the eagle of Krishna, is purely figurative ; and
colorful of the contention between the followers of Parswanatha,
figured under his emblem, the snake, and those of Krishna, depicted
under his sign, the eagle.
In the case of the Sesodias of Mewar, Guhadatta, the name of its
founder is said to have belonged to the Gurjara stock, who entered
India about the sixth century of our era, and founded a kingdom in
Rajputana with its capital at Bhilmal or Srimal, about fifty miles
from Mount Abu, the scene of the regeneration of the Rajputs.
This branch, which took the name of Maitrika, is said to be closely
connected with the Mer tribe, which gave its name to Merwara, and is
fully described in The Annals.
The actual conqueror of Chitor, Bapa or Bappa, is said in inscriptions
to have belonged to the branch known as Nagar, or ' City ' Brahmans
which has its present headquarters at the town of Vadnagar in the
Baroda State.
These facts help us to understand the strange story in The Annals, and
the origin of our father Adam
Gohaditya received inauguration as chief by having his forehead
smeared with blood drawn from the finger of a Bhil
The Bhils, now a wild forest tribe, and the Rajputs.
The Bhils were the free lords of the jungle, original owners of the
soil, and though they practiced rites and followed customs repulsive
to orthodox Hindus, they did not share in the impurity which attached
to foul outcastes like the Dom or the Chandala. ,
As the Bhils were believed to be autonomous, and thus understood the
methods of controlling or conciliating the local spirits, by this form
of inauguration they passed on their knowledge to the Rajputs whom
they accepted as their lords. The relations of the Minas, another
jungle tribe of the same class, with the Kachhwahas of Jaipur were of
the same kind.
According to the bardic legend given in The Annals, the Rathors, the
second great Rajput clan, owed their origin to a migration of a body
of its members to the western Desert when the territory of Kanauj was
conquered by Shihabu-d-din in a.d. 1193. But it is now certain that
the ruling dynasty of Kanauj belonged, not to the Rathor, but to the
Gaharwar clan, and that the first Rathor settlement in Rajputana must
have occurred anterior to the conquest of Kanauj by the Musalmans.
An inscription, dated a.d. 997, found in the ruins of the ancient
town of Hathundi or Hastikundi in the Bali Hakumat of the Jodhpur
describing the popular religion of Mewar, the festival and rites in
honour of Gauri, the Mother goddess.
There are also many incidental notices of cults and superstitions
scattered throughthe work during this time.
A race of warriors like the Rajputs favours the worship of Siva who,
as the successor of Rudra, the Vedic storm-god, was originally a
terror-inspiring deity, a side of his character only imperfectly
veiled by his euphemistic title of Siva, ' the blessed or auspicious
One.'
in another inscription, dated a.d. 971, is in form of a dedication to
Lakultsa, a form of Siva represented as bearing a club, and refers to
the Saiva sect known as Lakullsa-Pasapatas. It records the name of a
king named Sri-Bappaka, ' the moon among the princes of the Guhila
dynasty,' who reigned at a place called Nagahvada, identified with
Nagda, an ancient town several times mentioned in The Annals, the
ruins of which exist at the foot of the hill on which the temple of
Eklingji stands. Sri-Bappaka is certainly Bapa or Bappa, the
traditional founder of the Mewar dynasty, which had at that time its
capital at Nagda.
From this inscription it is clear that the Eklingji temple was in
existence before a.d. 971,
The milder side of the Rajput character is represented in the cult of
Krishna at Nathdwara. The Mahant or Abbot of the temple, with image of
Kesavadeva, a form of Krishna, ' the cart bearing the image arrived at
Siarh, the god, by stopping the cart, is said to have expressed liis
intention of remaining there.
This was the origin of the famous temple, still visited by crowds of
pilgrims, and one of the leading seats of the Vallabhacharya sect, '
the Epicureans of the East,' whose practices, as disclosed in the
famous Maharaja libel case, tried at Bombay in 1861, gave rise to
grievous scandal.
Thou Emperor Akbar favoured the worship of Krishna, a feeling shared
by his successors Jahangir and Shah Jahan.
Akbar, in his search for a new faith dallied with Hindu Pandits,
Parsi priests, and Christian missionaries, and he was doubtless well
informed about the sensuous ritual of the temple of Nathdwara.
Examination—.........................................the constant
references to the cult of Bal-Siva, a form of the Sun god.
...................................It is, of course, not unlikely that
Siva, as a deity of fertility, should be associated with Sun worship,
but there is no evidence of the cult on which Tod lays special stress-
The Annals possesses importance because it represents a phase in the
study of Indian religions, ethnology, and sociology'.
He observed SINCE THE Rajputs when they were in a stage of
transition. Isolated by the inaccessibility of their country, against
the rising tide of the Muhammadan invasions To avoid anarchy and the
ultimate destruction of these States, it was necessary for them ta
accept a closer union with the British as the paramount power. By this
they lost something, but they gained much. The new connexion involved
new duties and responsiblities in adapting their primitive system of
government to modern requirements.
• A material drawback
• love and war are their favourite themes.
• suspicious kind of historical evidence
• respecting places of pilgrimage and religious resort, profane events
• are blended with superstitious rites and ordinances, local ceremonies
• and customs.
The controversies of the Jains furnish, also, much historical
information, especially with reference to Gujarat and Nahrwala, during
the Chaulukya dynasty. From a close and attentive examination of the
Jain records, which embody all that those ancient sectarians knew of
science, many chasms in Hindu history might be filled up.
The party-spirit of the rival sects of India was, doubtless, adverse
to the purity of history ; and the very ground upon which the Brahmans
built their ascendency was the ignorance of the people.
There appears to have been in India as well as in Egypt in early
times, a coalition between the hierarchy and the state, with the view
of keeping the mass of the nation in darkness and subjugation.
These different records, works of a mixed historical and geographical
character which I know to exist ; raesas or poetical legends of
princes, which are common ; local Puranas, religious comments, and
traditionary couplets ; with authorities of a less dubious character,
namely, inscriptions ' cut on the rock,' coins, copper-p late grants,
containing charters of immunities, and expressing many singular
features of civil government, constitute, as observed, no despicable
materials for the historian, who would,
moreover,
ALL established ancient Pagan SYSTEM and THE SACRIFICE , THE LINEAGE IS
Sacred genealogy from the Puranas ; re- examined the Mahabharata, and
later Muhammadan writers incorporated the change .
The conquest by a handful of strangers for Thirty Years. The War to
show what the energy of one of these petty States, impelled by a sense
of oppression, effected against the colossal power of its enemies.
It is a portion of their history which should be deeply studied by
those who have succeeded to the paramount power ; for Aurangzeb had
less reason to distrust the stability of his dominion than we have :
yet what is now the house of Timur ?
The resources of Marwar were reduced to as low an ebb at the close of
Aurangzeb's reign, as they are at the present time ; yet did that
State surmount all its difficulties, and bring armies into the field
that annihilated the forces of the empire.
The link connecting the tribes of India Proper with the ancient races
west of the Indus, or Indo-Scythia
The ingenuous, pious, and liberal Abu-1 Fazl, when completing his
History of the Provinces of India ;
" Praise be unto God, that by the assistance of his Divine Grace, I
have completed the History of the Rajputs.
The Author's Surveys.—The route of the embassy was from Agra, through
the southern frontier of Jaipur to Udaipur.
Points laid down from celestial observation
It embraced all the extreme points of Central India : Agra, Narwar,
Datia, Jhansi, Bhopal, .Sarangpur, Ujjain, and on return from this,
the first meridian of the Hindus, by Kotah; Bundi, Rampura (Tonk),
Bayana, to Agra.
The position of all these places was more or less accurately fixed,
according to the time which could be bestowed, by astronomical
observation The position then assigned to it, with most inadequate
instruments, has been changed only 1 ' of longitude, though the
latitude amounted to about 5'.
In 1820 important journey across the Aravalli, by Kumbhalmer, Pali, to
Jodhpur, the capital of Marwar, and hence by Merta, tracing the course
of the Luni to its source at Ajmer ; and from this celebrated
residence of the Chauhan
Rajasthan presents a great variety of feature.
The highest peak of the insulated Abu, ' the saint's
pinnacle,' as it is termed, Indus west to the ' withy-covered '
Betwa on the east. From this, the most elevated spot in Hindustan,
overlooking by fifteen hundred feet
The Aravalli moimtains, his eye descends to the plains of Medpat .
Sir. J. B. Fraser [whose book was published in 1825].
From Abu to the Chambal, to the Betwa at Kotra is one thousand feet
above the sea-level, and one thousand lower than the city and valley
of Udaipur, which again is on the same level with the base of Abu, two
thousand feet above the sea. This line, is about six geographic
degrees in length :
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet is this small space highly diversified, both in its inhabitants
and the production of the soil, whether hidden or revealed.
The essence of the extract from the Agni Pur ana is this : " When
ocean quitted his bounds and caused universal destruction by Brahma's
command, Vaiva- swata ^ Manu (Noah), who dwelt near the Himalaya ^
mountains was giving water to the gods in the Kritamala river, when a
small fish fell into his hand. A voice commanded him to preserve it.
The fish expanded to an enormous size. Manu, with his sons and their
wives, and the sages, with the seed of every living thing, entered
into a vessel which was fastened to a horn on the head of the fish,
and thus they were preser-fed."
Here, then, the grand northern chain is given to which the abode of
the great patriarch of mankind approximated. In the Bhavishya it is
stated, that " Vaivaswata (sun-born) Manu ruled at the mountain
Sumeru. Of his seed was Kakutstha Raja, who obtained sovereignty at
Ayodhya,* and his descendants filled the land and spread over the
earth."
Sumeru, designated the north pole of the earth. But they had also a
mountain with this same appellation of pre-eminence of Meru, ' the
hill,' with the prefix Su, ' good, sacred ' : the Sacred Hill.
MEANING ' TABLE {PAT) MOUNTAIN (AR).'— A PRIMITIVE ROOT POSSESSING
SUCH MEANING—INSTANCE, AR-BUDDHA,
'HILL OF BUDDHA'; ARAVALLI, 'HILL OF STRENGTH.' AR IS HEBREW FOR
'MOUNTAIN - ' (QU. ARARAT ?) "OPOS IN GREEK ?
The common word for a mountain in Sanskrit, gir, is equally so in Hebrew.
The citadel pinnacle of Kumbhalmer, range running north to Ajmer,
where it loses its tabular form, and breaking into lofty ridges, sends
numerous branches through the Shaikhavati federation, and Alwar, till
in low heights it terminates at Delhi.
FROM KUMBHALMER TO AJMER THE WHOLE SPACE IS TERMED MERWARA, AND IS
INHABITED BY THE MOUNTAIN RACE OF MER OR MAIR, THE HABITS AND HISTORY
OF WHICH SINGULAR CLASS WILL BE RELATED.
The range averages from six to fifteen miles in breadth, in the east
or west—THE ANCIENT STOCK OF THE SURYAVANS OF INDIA, OUR ' CHILDREN
OF THE SUN,' THE PRINCES OF MEWAR.
Many years ago ' The Lord of the Mountain ' was dead : the men were
all abroad, and his widow alone in the hut.
Meru signifies ' a hill ' in Sanskrit, 'the hill' or 'mountain of
Kumbha/ a prince whose exploits are narrated. Likewise Ajmer is the
'hill of Ajaymeru ,' the 'Invincible' hill.
Views from the Aravalli Hills.— along the chain, several fortresses
are observed on pinnacle guarding the passes on either side, while
numerous rills ( a small channel cut in soil) descend, pouring over
the mountain surface , seeking their devious exit between the
projecting ribs of the mountain.
RESULT : Rapid mountain fast-moving water, IN THE soil below the
chaotic mass of rock where its ' fractured pinnacles ' are seen rising
the Aravalli the ' Apennines of India '
THE GHATS ON THE MALABAR COAST OF OLDEST OF ALL THE PHYSICAL FEATURES
WHICH INTERSECT THE CONTINENT IS THE RANGE OF MOUNTAINS KNOWN AS THE
ARAVALLIS, WHICH STRILIES ACROSS THE PENINSULA FROM NORTH-EAST TO
SOUTH-WEST, OVERLOOKING THE SANDY WASTES OF RAJPUTANA.
THE ARAVALLIS DEPRESSED AND DEGRADED RELICS OF A PROMINENT MOUNTAIN SYSTEM.
The Mountain System of Central India.
The Chambal River.—The Chambal has his fountains in a very elevated
point of the Vindhya,
It has three cluster, the Chambal, Chambela, and Gambhir ; while no
less than nine other streams have their origin on the south side, and
pour their waters into the Nerbudda.
The Sipra from Pipalda, the little Sind from Dewas, and other minor
streams passing Ujjain, all unite with the Chambal in different stages
before he breaks through the plateau.
The Kali Sind, from Bagri, and its petty branch, the Sodwia, from
Raghugarh ; the Niwaz (or Jamniri), from Morsukri and Magarda ; the
Parbati, from the pass of Amlakhera, with its more eastern arm from
Daulatpur, uniting at Pharhar, are all points in the crest of the
Vindhya range, whence they pursue their course through the plateau,
rolling over precipices, till engulfed in the Chambal at the ferries
of Nunera and Pali. All these unite on the right bank.
On the left bank his flood is increased by the Banas, fed by the
perennial streams from the Aravalli, and the Berach from the lakes of
Udaipur ; and after watering Mewar, the southern frontier of Jaipur,
and the highlands of Karauli, the river turns south to unite at the
holy Sangam,' Rameswar. Minor streams contribute (unworthy, however,
of separate notice), and after a thousand involutions he reaches the
Jumna, at the holy Triveni, or ' triple-allied ' stream, between Etawa
and Kalpi.
This is the fourth Sind of India. We have, first, the Sind or Indus ;
this little Sind ; then the Kali Sind, or ' black river ' ; and again
the Sind rising at Latoti, on the plateau west and above Sironj. Sin
is a Scythio word for river (now unused), so applied by the Hindus.
[Skr. Sindhu, probably from the root syand, ' to flow.'
The falls of the Kali Sind through the rocks at Gagraun and the
Parbati at Chapra (Gugal) are well worthy of a visit. The latter,
though I encamped twice at Chapra, from which it was reputed five
miles, I did not see.
Sangam is the point of confluence of two or more rivers, always sacred
to Mahadeva.
The Jumna, Chambal, and Sind [triveni, ' triple braid '].
PHYSIOGRAPHY OF RAJASTHAN
The course of the Chambal, not reckoning the minor sinuosities, is
upwards of five hundred miles ; ^ and along its banks specimens of
nearly every race now existing in India may be found : Sondis,
Chandarawats, Sesodias, Haras, Gaur, Jadon, Sakarwal, Gujar, Jat,*
Tuar, Chauhan, Bhadauria, Kachhwaha, Sengar, Bundela ; each in
associations of various magnitudes, from the substantive state of the
little republic communes between the Chambal and Kuwari'
The Western Desert. —Having thus sketched the central portion of
Rajasthan, or that eastward of the Aravalli, I shall give a rapid
general * view of that to the west, conducting the reader over the '
Thai ka Tiba,' or ' sand hills ' of the desert, to the valley of the
Indus.
The Luni River.— The most interesting object in this arid ' region of
death ' is the ' salt river,'
The Luni, from its sources, the sacred lakes of Pushkar and Ajmer, and
the more remote arm from Parbatsar to its embouchure in the great
western salt marsh, the Rann, has a course of more than three hundred
miles.
Extensively formed by the deposits of the Luni, and the equally
saturated saline streams from the southern desert of Dhat.
The Mirage.—It is on the desiccated borders of this vast salt marsh
that the illusory phenomenon, the mirage, Such phenomena are common to
the desert, more particularly where these extensive saline depositions
exist, but varying from certain causes.
In most cases, this powerfully magnifying and reflecting medium is a
vertical stratum ; at first dense and opaque, it gradually tenuates
with increased temperature, till the maximum of heat, which it can
no longer resist, drives it off in an ethereal vapour.
The top of the ruined fortress of Hissar with unlimited range of
vision, no object to diverge its ray, save the miniature forests ; the
entire circle of tlie horizon a chain of more than fancy could form of
palaces, towers, and these airy ' pillars of heaven ' terminating in
turn their ephemeral existence.
But in the deserts of Dhat and Umrasumra, where the shepherds pasture
their flocks, and especially where the alkaline plant is produced, the
stratification is more horizontal, and produces more of the watery
deception. It is this illusion to which the inspired writer refers,
when he says, " the mock pool of the desert shall become real water "
[Isaiah xxv. 7].
The Desert.—From the north bank of the Luni to the south, and the
Shaikhavat frontier to the east, the sandy region commences.
Bikaner, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer are all sandy plains, increasing in volume
as you proceed westward.
All this portion of territory is incumbent on a sandstone formation :
suroundings of all the new wells made from Jodhpur to Ajmer yielded
the same result : sand, concrete siliceous deposits, and chalk.
Though all these regions collectively bear the terra Marusthali, or '
region of death ' (the emphatic and figurative phrase for the desert),
the restrictive definition applies to a part only, that under the
dominion of the Rathor race .
From Balotra on the Luni, throughout the whole of Dhat and Umrasumra,
the western portion of Jaisalmer, and a broad strip between the
southern limits of Daudputra and Bikaner, there is real solitude and
desolation.
But from the Sutlej to the Rann, a space of five hundred miles of
longitudinal distance, and varying in breadth from fifty to one
hundred miles, numerous oases are found, where the shepherds from the
valley of the Indus and the Thai pasture their flocks.
Deluge Legend.—The Genesis of India commences with an event described
in the history of almost all nations, the deluge, which, though
treated with the fancy peculiar to the orientals, is not the less
entitled to attention.
The essence of the extract from the Agni Purana is this : When ocean
quitted his bounds and caused universal destruction by Brahma's
command, Vaivaswata
Manu (Noah), who dwelt near the Himalaya mountains was giving water
to the gods in the Kritamala river, when a small fish fell into his
hand. A voice commanded him to preserve it.
The fish expanded to an enormous size. Manu ( NOAH) , with his sons
and their wives, and the sages, with the seed of every living thing,
entered into a vessel which was fastened to a horn on the head of the
fish, and thus they were preser-fed."
Here, then, the grand northern chain is given to which the abode of
the great patriarch of mankind approximated. In the Bhavishya it is
stated, that " Vaivaswata (sun-born) Manu ruled at the mountain
Sumeru. Of his seed was Kakutstha Raja, who obtained sovereignty at
Ayodhya,* and his descendants filled the land and spread over the
earth."
This same appellation of pre-eminence of Meru, ' the hill,' with the
prefix Su, ' good, sacred ' : the Sacred Hill.
Meru, Sumeru.—In the geography of the Agni Purana
* The present Ajodhya, capital of one of the twenty-two satrapies
constituting the Mogul Empire, and for some generations held by the
Title Wa zir, who has recently assumed the regal title. [Ghaziu-d-din
Haidar in 1819.]
* " To the south of Sumeru are the mountains Himavan, Hemakuta, and
Nishadha ; to the north are the countries Nil, Sveta, and Sringi
Between Hemachal and the ocean the land is Bharatkhand, called
Kukarraa Bhumi (land of vice, opposed to Aryavarta, or land of
virtue),
In which the seven grand ranges are Mahendra, Malaya, Sahya,
Suktimat, Riksha, Vindhya, and Paripatra " {Agni Purana).
EARLY TRADITIONS
The rivers flowing from the mountainous ranges, whose relative
position with Sumeru are thei'e defined, still retain their ancient
appellations
This sacred mountain (Sumeru) is claimed by the Brahmans as the abode
of Mahadeva,^ Adiswar,^ or Baghes ' ; by the Jains, as the abode of
Adinath,* the first Jiniswara, or Jain lord.
Here they say he taught mankind the arts of agriculture and civilized
life. The Greeks claimed it as the abode of Bacchus ; and hence the
Grecian fable of this god being taken from the thigh of Jupiter,
confounding rncros (thigh) with the merii (hill) of this Indian deity.
In this vicinity the followers of Alexander had their Saturnalia,
drank to excess of the wine from its indigenous Wines, and bound their
brows with ivy (vela) sacred to the Baghes of the east and west,
whose votaries alike indulge in ' strong drink.'
These traditions appear to point to one spot, and to one individual,
in the early history of mankind, when the Hindu and the Greek approach
a common focus ; for there is little doubt that Adinath, Adiswara,
Osiris, Baghes, Bacchus, Manu, Menes designate the patriarch of
majjikind, Noah.
The Hindus can at this time give only a very general idea of the site
of Meru ; but they appear to localize it in a space of which Bamian,
Kabul, and Ghazni would be the exterior points.
The former of these cities is Known to possess remains of the The
Creator, literally ' the Great God.
The ' first lord.' Baghes, ' the tiger lord. He wears a tiger's or
panther's hide ; which he places beneath him. So Bacchus did. The
phallus is the emblem of each. Baghes has several temples in Mewar.
[In identifying Bacchus with a Hindu tiger god the author depended on
Asiatic Researches, i. 258, viii. 51.
For the Greek story in the text see Quintus Curtius viii. 10; Diodorus
iii. 63; Arrian, Anabasis, vii.]
' Vela is the general term for a climber, sacred to the Indian Bacchus
(Baghes, Adiswara, or Mahadeva), whose priests, following his example,
are fond of intoxicating beverreligion of Buddha, in its caves and
colossal statues. Paropamisaa Alexandria is near Baniian ; but the
Meru and Nyssa of Alexander are placed more to the eastward by the
Greek writers, and according to the cautious Arrian between the Cophas
and Indus.
Authority localizes it between Peshawar and Jalalabad, and calls it
Merkoh, or Markoh,* " a bare rock 2000 feet high with caves to the
westward, termed Bedaulat by the Emperor Humayun from its dismal
appearance."
This In the Tuman of Zohak and Bamiiin, the fortress of Zohak is a
monument of great antiquity, and in good preservation, but the fort of
Bamian is in ruins. In the mountain -side caves have been excavated
and ornamented with plaster and paintings.
Of these there are 12,000 which are called Sumaj, and in former times
were used by the people as winter retreats. Three colossal figures are
here : one is the statue of a man, 80 yards in height ; another that
of a woman, 50 yards high, and the third that of a child measuring 15
yards. Strange to relate, in one of the caves is placed a coffin
containing the body of one who reposes in his last sleep.
The oldest and most learned of antiquarians can give no account of its
origin, but suppose it to be of great antiquity. In days of old the
ancients prepared a medicament with which they anointed corpses and
consigned them to earth in a hard soil. The simple, deceived by this
art, attribute their preservation to a miracle " {Ain, ii. 409 f.,
with Jarrett's notes). For Bamian see EB, iii. 304 f.]
Nishadha is mentioned in the Purana as a mountain. If in the genitive
case (which the final syllable marks), it would be a local term given
from the city of Nissa. [Nysa has no connexion with Nishadha. It
probably lay near Jalalabad or Koh-i Mor (Smith^HI, 53).]
* Meru, Sanskrit, and Koh, Persian, for a ' hiU.'
* Asiatic Researches, vol. vi. p. 497. Wilford appears to have
borrowed largely from that ancient store-house (as the Hindu would
call it) of learning.
Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World. He combines, however, much
of what that great man had so singularly acquired and condensed, with
what he himself collected, and with the aid of imagination has formed
a curious mosaic.
But when he took a peep into " the chorographical description of the
Terrestrial Paradise," I am surprised he did not separate the
nurseries of mankind before and after the flood. There is one passage,
also, of Sir Walter Raleigh which would have aided his hypothesis,
that Eden was in Higher Asia, between the common sources of the Jihun
and other grand rivers : the abundance of the Ficus Indica, or
bar-tree, sacred to the first lord, Adnath or Mahadeva.
" Now for the tree of knowledge of good and evil, some men have
presumed further ; especially Gorapius Bocanus, who giveth liimself
the honour to have found out the kind of this tree, which none of the
writers of former times could ever guess at, whereat Gorapius much
marvelleth."
EARLY TRADITIONS
The unhappy plain,' was given to the tract between the cities before
mentioned .
The only scope of these remarks on Sumeru is to show that The fig tree
; not that kind for fruit renowned.
But such as at this day, to Indians known In Malabar or Decan, spreads
her arms Branching so broad and long, that in the ground.
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother tree,
a pillar'd shade High overarched, and echoing walks between.
There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat, Shelters in cool and
tends his pasturing herds." " Those leaves They gathered, broad as
Amazonian targe."
Paradise Lost, Book ix. 1100 ff.
Sir V/alter strongly supports the Hindu hypothesis regarding the locality
of the nursery for rearing mankind, and that " India was the first planted
and peopled countrie after the flood " (p. 99). His first argument is, that
it was a place where the vine and olive were indigenous, as amongst the
Sakai Scythai (and as they still are, together with oats, between Kabul and
Bamian) ; and that Ararat could not be in Armenia, b
ecause the Gordian mountains on which the ark rested were in longitude
75°, and the vauey of Shinar 79° to 80°, which would be reversing the
tide of migration.
"As They journeyed from the East, they found a plain, in the land of
Shinar, and
They dwelt there " (Genesis, chap. Xi. Ver. 2). He adds, " Ararat,
named by Moses, is not any one hill, but a general term for the great
Caucasian Range ; therefore we must blow up this mountain Ararat, or
dig it down And carry it out of Armenia, or find it elsewhere in a
warmer country, and East from Shinar." He therefore places it in
Indo-Scythia, in 140° of Longitude and 35° to 37° of latitude, " where
the mountains do build themselves Exceeding high " :
And concludes,
" It was in the plentiful warm East where Noah rested, where he
tilled the ground and lived thereon.
The study of husbandry pleased Noah (says the excellent learned man,
Arius Montanus) in the order and knowledge of which it is said that
Noah excelled All men, and therefore was he called in his own
language, a man exercised in
The earth." The title, character, and abode exactly suit the description
* In Sanskrit, Ish, ' Lord,' adi, ' the first,' matti, ' Earth.' [The
derivation Is absurd : matti, ' clay,' is modern Hindi.]
Here the Sanskrit and Hebrew have the same meaning, ' first lord of
the earth.' In these remote Rajput regions, where early manners and
language remain, the strongest Phrase to denote a man or human being
is literally ' earth.' A chief describing A fray between his own
followers and borderers whence death Ensued, says, Meri matti mdri, '
My earth has been struck ' : A PHRASE
Requiring no comment, and denoting that he must have blood in return
the Hindus themselves do not make India within the Indus the Cradle of
their race, but west, amidst the hills of Caucasus,'
When the sons of Vaivaswata, or the ' sun-born,' migrated Eastward to
the Indus and Ganges, and founded their first establishment In Kosala,
the capital, Ayodhya, or Oudh.
Most nations have indulged the desire of fixing the source Whence they
issued, and few spots possess more interest than This elevated
Madhya-Bhumi, or ' central region ' of Asia, where The Amu, Oxus, or
Jihun, and other rivers, have their rise, and in Which both the Surya
and Indu * races (Sakha) claim the hill,'
The Jains give of their first Jiniswara, Adinath, the first lordly
man, who Taught them agriculture, even to " muzzling the bull in
treading out the corn." Had Sir Walter been aware that the Hindu
sacred books styled their Country Aryavarta,* and of which the great
Imaus is the northern boundary,
He would doubtless have seized it for his Ararat. [Needless to say,
these Speculations are obsolete.]
^ Hindu, or Indu-kush or koh, is the local appellation ; ' mountain of
The moon.' [Hindu-kush is said to mean ' Hindu-slayer ' or ' Indian
Caucasus.'] ^ Solar and lunar. * Meru, ' the hill,' is used
distinctively, as in Jaisalmer (the capital of the Bhatti tribe in
the Western Desert), ' the hill of Jaisal ' ; Merwara, or the '
mountainous region ' ; and its inhabitants Meras, or ' mountaineers.'
THUS, ALSO, IN THE GRAND EPIC THE RAMAYANA (BOOK I. P. 236),
Mena is the mountain-nymph, the daughter of Meru and spouse of Himavat
; from whom sprung two daughters, the river goddess Ganga and the
mountainnymph Parbati. She is, in the Mahabharata, also termed Saila,
the daughter of Sail, another designation of the snowy chain ; and
hence mountain streams are called in Sanskrit sillelee
..................................
Saila bears the same attributes with the Phrygian Cybele, who was
also the daughter of a mountain of the same name ; the one is carried,
the other drawn, by lions. ...........................Thus the Greeks
also metamorphosed Parbat Pamer, or ' the mountain Pamer,' into
Paropamisan, apphed to the Hindu Koh west of Bamian : but the Parbat
pat Pamer, or ' Pamer chief of hills,' is mentioned by the bard Chand
as being far cast of that tract, and under it resided Hamira, one of
the great feudatories of .............Prithwiraja of Delhi.
Had it been Paropanisan (as some authorities write it), it would
better accord with the locality where it takes up the name, being near
to'Nyssa and Meru, of which Parbat or Pahar would be a version, and
form Paronisan, ' the Mountain of Nyssa,' the range Nishadha of the
Puranas. [The true form is Paropanisos : the suggested derivation is
impossible.]
. ^
The land of promise or virtue, cannot extend to the flat ...plains of
India south of the Himavat ;
For this is styled in the Puranas the very reverse
Kukarma des, or land of vice. [Aryavarta is the land bounded by the
Himalaya and Vindhya, from the eastern to the eastern seas (Manu,
Laws, ii. 22).]
EARLY TRADITIONS : GENEALOGIES : Sacred to a great patriarchal
ancestor, where they migrated eastward.
The Rajput tribes could scarcely have acquired some of their still
existing Scythic habits and warlike superstitions on the burning
plains of Ind It was too hot to hail with fervent adoration the return
of the sun from his southern course to enliven the northern
hemisphere.
This should be the religion of a colder clime, brought from their
first haunts, the sources of the Jihim and Jaxartes.
The grand solstitial festival, the Aswamedha, or sacrifice of the
horse (the type of the sun), practised by the children of Vaivaswata,
the ' sun-born,' was most probably simultaneously introduced from
Scythia into the plains of Ind, and west, by the sons of Odin, Woden,
or Budha, into Scandinavia, where it became the Hi-el or Hi-ul,^ the
festival of the winter solstice ; the grand jubilee of northern
nations, and in the first ....ages of Christianity, being so near the
epoch of its rise, gladly used by the first fathers of the church to
perpetuate that event
,
Puranie Genealogies.—The chronicles of the Bhagavat and Agni,
containing the genealogies of the Surya (sun) and Indu [moon) races,
shall now be examined. The first of these, by calculation, brings
down the chain to a period six centuries subsequent to
Vikramaditya (a.d. 650), so that these books may have beeN
remodelled or about this period : FABRICATED
Although portions of these genealogies by Sir William Jones, Mr.
Bentley, and Colonel Wilford, have appeared in the volumes of the
Asiatic Researches, yet no one should rest satisfied with the
inquiries of others, if by any process he can reach the fountainhead
himself. If, after all, these are fabricated genealogies of tbe
ancient Ilaya or Hi, in Sanskrit, ' horse '
El, ' sun ' appears to have been a term of Scythian origin for the sun
; and Hari, the Indian Apollo, is addressed as the sun. Hiul, or Jul,
of northern nations (qu. Noel of France ?), is the Hindu Sankranti, of
which more will be said hereafter. [The feast was known as Hvil, .Tnl,
or Yule, and the suggested derivation is impossible.] The fabrication
is of ancient date, and they know NOT themselves upon the subject.
The step next in importance to obtaining a perfect acquaintance with
the genuine early history of nations, is to learn WHAT those nations
repute to be such.
VEIL OF IGNORANCE ON THE
INDIANS..............................Doubtless the original Puranas
contained much valuable
historical matter ; but, at present, it is difficult to separate a
little pure metal from the base alloy of ignorant expounders and
interpolators.
AUTHOR HAS skimmed the surface research, to the capable, may yet be
rewarded by many isolated facts and important transactions, now hid
under the veil of ignorance and allegory.
THE GREAT CONSPIRACY UNVEILS
.....................................Neglect of History by the Hindus.
The decrease of intellectual power, their possession of which is
evinced by their architectural remains, where just proportion and
elegant ..........mythological device are still visible, lost the
relish for the beauty of truth..........and adopted the monstrous in
their writings as well as their edifices.
But for detection and shame matters of history would be hideously
distorted even in civilized Europe but in the East, in the moral
decrepitude of ancient Asia, with no judge to condemn, no public to
praise, each priestly expounder may revel in a:n unfettered
imagination, and reckon his admirers in proportion to the mixture of
the marvellous .
Plain historical truths have long ceased to interest this
artificially fed people.
If at such a comparatively modern period as the third century before
Christ, the Babylonian historian Berosus composed his fictions, which
assigned to that monarchy such incredible antiquity, it became
capable of refutation from the many historians of repute who preceded
him.
If Vyasa himself penned these legends as A NEW REVELATION THE MIND &
HEARTS WOULD CONSUME IT WITHOUT AWARENESS.
KNOWLEDGE IS DIVINE
KNOWLEDGE LIFTS THE VEIL OF IGNORANCE
KNOWLEDGE IS KNOWING THE UNKNOWN
KNOWLEDGE IS AWARENESS
KNOWLEDGE IS DECISIVE
KNOWLEDGE IS RIGHTEOUS
KNOWLEDGE IS ENLIGHTENMENT
KNOWLEDGE IS VICTORY
KNOWLEDGE IS THE KEY TO ALL THE MYSTERIES IN THE WORLD
KNOWLEDGE IS THE SECRET TO WEALTH
KNOWLEDGE IS THE SECRET TO VICTORY
The progress to the heights of science they attained must have been
gradual ; unless we take from them the merit of original invention,
and set them down as borrowers of a system.
These slavish fetters of the mind must have been forged at a later
period, and it is fair to infer that the monopoly of science and
religion was simultaneous' SAYS THE
AUTHOR..................................
What must be the effect of such monopoly on the impulses and
operations of the understanding ?
WHEN such knowledge EXIST...............could not long remain
motionless ; it must force traditional.
Could we but discover the period when religion ceased to be a
...profession and became hereditary (and that such there
was..............these very genealogies bear evidence),
we might approximate the
era when science attained its height.
The Priestly Office.—In the early ages of these Solar and Lunar
dynasties, the priestly office was not hereditary in families ; it was
a profession
Brahmanical religion was foreign to India but as to the period of
importation we have but loose assertion. We can easily give credit to
various creeds and tenets of faith being from time to time
incorporated, ere the present books were composed, and that previously
the sons of royalty alone possessed the office.
Authorities of weight intone tugs of these grafts; for instance, Mr.
Colebrook gives a passage in his Indian Classes: "A chief of the
twice-boom tribe was brought by Vishnu's j "it eagle from Saca Dwipa;
hence Saca Dwipa Brahmins were known in Jambu 1 Dwipa." By Saka Dwipa,
Scythia is understood, of which more will be'
Said hereafter. Ferishta also, translating from ancient authorities,
says, To the same effect, that "in the reign of Mahraje, King of
Canouj,
A Brahmin 'came from Persia, who introduced magic, idolatry, and the
worship of tile stars "; so that there is no want of authority for the
introduction of new Tenets of faith. [The passage, inaccurately
quoted, is taken from Dow i. 16. See Briggs's translation, i. Introd.
Ixviii.] commencement of a religious sect, or gotra, and of their
descendants reassuming their worked occupations.
Thus, of the ten sons of Ikshwaku, three are represented as abandoning
worldly Affairs and taking to religion
And one of these, Kanina, is said to be the first who made an
agnihotra, or pyreum, and worshipped fire, while another son embraced
commerce.
Of the Lunar line
And the six sons of Pururavas, the name of the fourth was Raya from
him the fifteenth generation was Harita, who with his eight brothers
took to the office of religion, and established the Kausika Gotra, or
tribe of Brahmans."
From the twenty-fourth prince in lineal descent from Yayati, by name
Bharadwaja originated a celebrated sect, who still bear his name, and
are the spiritual teachers of several Rajput tribes.
Of the twenty-sixth prince, Manava, two sons devoted themselves to
religion, and established celebrated sects, viz. Mahavira, whose
descendants were the Pushkar Brahmans; and Sankriti.
Whose issue was learned in the Vedas.
From the line of Ajamidha these ministers of religion were continually
branching off.
In the very early periods, the princes of the Solar line, like the
Egyptians and Romans, combined the offices of the priesthood with
kingly power, and this whether Brahmanical or Buddhist.*
Many of the royal line, before and subsequent to Rama, passed great
part of their lives as ascetics ; and in ancient sculpture and
drawings the head is as often adorned with the braided lock of the
ascetic as with the diadem of royalty.*
The greatest monarchs bestowed their daughters on these royal hermits
and sages [28]. Ahalya, the daughter of the powerful Panchala,* became
the wife of the ascetic Gautama.
Some of the earliest of the twenty-four Tirthakaras, or Jain
hierarchs, trace their origin from the solar race of princes. [As
usual, Buchlhisni confused with Jainism.]
'Even now the Rana of Mewar mingles spiritual duties with those of
Royalty, and when he attends the temple of the tutelary deity of his
race, He performs himself all the offices of the high priest for the
day. In this Point a strong resemblance exists too many of the races
of antiquity.
• Prince of the country of Panjab, or five streams east of the Indus.
[Panchrda was in the Ganges-Jumna Duab and its neighborhood.]
'' The legend of this monarch stealing his son-in-law's, the hermit's,
cow (Of which the Ramayana gives another version), the incarnation of
ParaPURANIC
GENEALOGIES
Mahishmat,' king of the Haihaya tribe, a great branch of the yadu
race. ................
Among the Egyptians, according to Herodotus [ii. 87, 141], the priests
succeeded to sovereignty, as they and the military class alone could
hold lands; and the priest of Vulcan, caused a revolution, by
depriving the military of their estates.
We have various instances in India of the Brahmans from Jamadagni to
the Mahratta Peshwa, contesting for sovereignty ; power * and homage
being still their great aim, as in the days of Vishvamitra ^ and
Vasishtha, the royal sages whom " Janaka suram, son of Jamadagni, and
his exploits, appear purely allegorical, signifying the violence and
oj) expression of royalty over the earth (prithivi), personified by
the sacred gao, or cow^ and that the Brahmans were enabled to 'wrest
royalty from the martial tribe, shows how they had multiplied.
MAHESWAR, ON THE NERBUDDA RIVER.
HINDUSTAN ABOUNDS WITH BRAHMANS, WHO MAKE EXCELLENT SOLDIERS
The Brahman Vasishtha possessed a cow named Savala, so fruitful that
With her assistance he could accomplish whatever he desired.
By her aid he entertained King Vishvamitra and his army. It is
evident that this cow denotes some tract of country which the priest
held (bearing in mind that gao, prithivi, signify ' the earth,' as
well as ' cow ') : a grant, beyond doubt, By some of Vishvamitra's
unwise ancestors, And which he wislied to resume.
FROM HER WERE SUPPUED " THE OBLATIONS TO THE GODS AND THE PITRIDEVA
(FATHERGODS, OR ANCESTORS), THE PERPETUAL SACRIFICIAL FIRE, THE
BURNT-OLI'ERINGS AND SACRIFICES." THIS WAS "THE FOUNTAIN OF DEVOTIONAL
ACTS"
; THIS WAS THE SAVALA FOR WHICH THE KING OFFERED "A HUNDRED THOUSAND
COWS" ; THIS WAS "THE JEWEL OF WHICH A KING ONLY SHOULD BE
PROPRIETOR."—THE SUBJECTS OF THE BRAHMAN APPEARED NOT TO RELISH SUCH
TRANSFER, AND BY " THE LOWING OF THE COW SAVALA " OBTAINED NUMEROUS
FOREIGN AUXILIARIES, WHICH ENABLED THE BRAHMAN TO SET HIS SOVEREIGN
AT DEFIANCE.
Of these " the Pahlavi
(Persian).................................;Kkings, the dreadful Sakas
(Sakai), and Yavanas (Greeks), with scymitars and ; gold armour, the
Kambojas," etc., were each in turn created by the a producing Cow.
The armies of the Pahlavi kings were cut to pieces by Vishvamitra ;
who at last, by continual reinforcements, was overpowered. The King
Vishvamitra, defeated and disgraced by this powerful priest, "Like a
serpent with his teeth broken, like the sun robbed by the eclipse of
Its splendor was filled with perturbation.
Deprived of his sons and array, stripped of his pride and confidence,
he was left without resource as a bird bereft of his wings." He
abandoned his kingdom to his son, and like all Hindu princes in
distress, determined, by penitential rites and austerities, "to obtain
Brahman hood."
HE TOOK UP HIS ABODE AT THE SACRED PUSHKAR, LIVING ON FRUITS AND
ROOTS, AND FIXING HIS MIND, SAID, "I WILL BECOME A BRAHMAN." BY THESE
PENANCES HE ATTAINED SUCH SPIRITUAL POWER THAT HE WAS ENABLED TO USURP
THE BRAHMAN'S OFFICE.
THUS DETERMINED TO BECOME A BRAHMAN BY AUSTERITY, THAT " THE DIVINE
BOOKS ARE TO BE OBSERVED WITH CARE ONLY BY THOSE ACQUAINTED WITH THEIR
EVIDENCE ;
nor does it become thee (Vishvamitra) to subvert the order of things
established by the ancients.
" The history of his wanderings, austerities, and the temptations
thrown in his way is related. The celestial fair were commissioned to
break in upon his meditations.
The mother of love herself descended ; while Indra, joining the cause
of the Brahmans, took the shape of the kokila, and added the melody of
his notes to the allurements of Rambha, and the perfumed zephyrs which
assailed the royal saint in the wilderness.
He was proof against all temptation, and condemned the fair to become
a pillar of stone. He persevered " till every passion was subdued,"
till " not a tincture of sin appeared in him," and gave such alarm to
the whole priesthood, that they dreaded lest his excessive sanctity
should be fatal to them : they feared " mankind would become
atheists."
" The gods and Brahma at their head were obliged to grant his desire
of Brahmanhood ; and Vashishtha, conciliated by the gods, acquiesced
in their wish,...................and formed a friendship with
Vishvamitra " [Muir, Original Sanskril Texts, Part i. (1858), 75 ff.].
VISHVAMITRA WAS THE SON OF GADHI (OF THE RACE OF KAUSIKA), KING OF
GADHIPURA, AND CONTEMPORARY OF AMBARISHA, KING OF AYODHYA OR OUDH, THE
FORTIETH PRINCE FROM IKSHWAKU ; CONSEQUENTLY
ABOUT..................TWO HUNDRED YEARS ANTERIOR TO RAMA.
This event therefore, whence we infer that the system of castes was
approaching perfection, was probably about one thousand foiu' hundred
years...........................before Christ.
The legend in the Puranas, of the origin of the Lunar race, appears to
afford this testimony Vyasa, the author of the grand epic the
Mahabharata, was son of Santanu (of the race of Hari), illegitimate.
He became the spiritual father, or preceptor, of his nieces, the
daughters of Vichitravirya, the son and successor of Santanu.
The Herakles Legend.—Vichitravirya had no male
offspring...................Of his three daughters, one was named
Pandaia *
; and Vyasa, Hari-Kula.
IT IS A VERY CURIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE THAT HINDU LEGEND GIVES TO TWO OF
THEIR MOST CELEBRATED AUTHORS, WHOM THEY HAVE INVESTED WITH A SACRED
CHARACTER, A DESCENT FROM THE ABORIGINAL AND IMPURE TRIBE OF INDIA :
VYASA FROM A FISHERMAN, AND VALMIKI, THE AUTHOR OF THE OTHER GRAND
EPIC THE RAMAYANA, FROM A BADDHIK OR ROBBER, AN ASSOCIATE OF THE BHIL
TRIBE AT ABU.
THE CONVERSION OF VAHNIKI (SAID TO HAVE BEEN MIRACULOUS, WHEN IN THE
ACT OF ROBBING THE SHRINE OF THE DEITY).........IS WORKED INTO A STORY
OF CONSIDERABLE EFFECT, IN THE WORKS OF CHAND, FROM OLDEN AUTHORITY.
The reason for this name is thus given.
One of these daughters being by a slave, it was necessary to ascertain
which : a difficult matter, from the secluision in which they were
kept. It was therefore left to Vyasa to discover the pure of birth,
who determined that nobihty of blood would show itself, and commanded
that the princesses should uncover before him.
The elder, from shame, closed her eyes, and from her was born the
blind………….Dhritarashtra, sovereign of Hastinapura ; the second, from
the same feeling,…………..covered herself with yellow ochre, called
pandit, and henceforth she bore the name of Pandya, and her son was
called Pandu ; while the third stepped forth unabashed. She was
adjudged not of gentle blood, and her issue was Vidura. being the sole
remaining male branch of the house of Santanu,
took his niece,
AND SPIRITUAL DAUGHTER, PANDAIA, TO WIFE, AND BECAME THE FATHER OF
PANDU, AFTERWARDS SOVEREIGN OF INDRAPRASTHA.
Arrian gives the story thus : "It is further said that he had a very
niunerous progeny of children born to A generic term for the
sovereigns of the race of Hari, used by Arrian as a proper name
. A section of the Mahabharata is devoted to the history of the
Harikula, of which race was vyasa.
Arrian notices the similarity of the Theban and the Hindu Hercules, and
cites as authority the ambassador of Seleucus, Megasthenes, who says :
" THIS HERCULES IS HELD IN SPECIAL HONOUR BY THE SOURAStraI, AN
INDIAN TRIBE BUT THE DRESS …WHICH THIS HERCULES WORE, RESEMBLED THAT
OF THE HERcules………..
Diodorus has the same legend, with some vai'iety. He says : " Hercules
was bom amongst the Indians, and Uke the Greeks they furnish him with
a club and lion's hide.
In strength (bala) he excelled all men, and cleared the sea and land
of monsters and wild beasts. He had many sons, but only one daughter.
It is said that he built Pahbothra, and divided his kingdom amongst
his sons (the Bahka-putras, sons of Bah). They never colonized ; but
in time most of the cities assumed a democratical form of government
(though some were monarchical) till Alexander's time." The combats of
Hercules, to which Diodorus alludes, are those in the legendary haunts
of the Harikul as, during their twelve years' exile from the seats of
their forefathers.
How invaluable such remnants of the ancient race of Harikula !
How refreshing to the mind yet to discover, amidst the ruins on the Yamuna,
Hercules (Baldeva, god of strength) on his pedestal as Baldeo, and yet
worshipped by the Suraseni ! …………………..the ancient capital founded by
Surasena, the grandfather of the
Indian brother-deities, Krishna and Baldeva, ApoUo and Hercules.
The title would apply to either ; though Baldeva has the attributes of
the ' god……….of strength.' Both are es (lords) of the race (Jcula) of
Hari (Hari-kul-es), of………..which the Greeks might have made the
compound Hercules.
Might not a colony after the Great War have migrated westward…………. The
period of the return of HeracUles, the descendants of Atrens (Atri is
progenitor of the Harikula), would answer : it was about half a
century after the Great War.
IT IS UNFORTUNATE THAT ALEXANDER'S HISTORIANS WERE UNABLE TO PENETRATE
INTO THE ARCANA OF THE HINDUS, AS HERODOTUS APPEARS TO HAVE DONE WITH
THOSE OF THE EGYPTIANS.
The shortness of Alexander's stay, the unknown language in which their
science and religion were hid, presented an inseperable difficulty.
They could have made very little progress in the study of the language
without discovering its analogy to their own.
THIS IS THE VERY LEGEND CONTAINED IN THE PURANAS, OF VYASA AND HIS
SPIRITUAL DAUGHTER PANDAIA, FROM WHOM THE GRAND RACE THE PANDAVAS, AND
FROM WHOM DELHI AND ITS DEPENDENCIES WERE DESIGNATED THE PANDAVA
SOVEREIGNTY.
Her issue ruled for thirty-one generations in direct descents, or from
1120 to 610 before Christ ; when the military minister,'connected by
blood, was chosen by the chiefs who rebelled against
the last Pandu king, represented as " neglectful of all the cares of
government," and whose deposition and death introduced a new dynasty.
Two other dynasties succeeded in like manner by the usurpation of
these military ministers, Vikramaditya, when the Pandava sovereignty
and era of Yudhishthirawere both overturned.
Arrian generally exercises his judgment in these matters, and is the
reverse of credulous. On this point he says, " Now to me it seems
that even if Hercules could have done a thing so marvellous, he
could have made himself longer-lived, in order to have intercourse
with his daughter when she was of mature age " [Indika, ix.].
SANDROCOTTUS IS MENTIONED BY ARRIAN TO BE OF THIS LINE ; AND WE CAN
HAVE NO HESITATION, THEREFORE, IN GIVING HIM A PLACE IN THE DYNASTY OF
PURU, THE SECOND SON OF YAYATI, WHENCE THE PATRONYMIC USED BY THE
RACE NOW EXTINCT, AS WAS YADU, THE ELDER BROTHER OF PURU.
Hence if not a Puru himself, is connected with the chain of which the
links are Jarasandha (a hero of the Bharat), Ripunjaya, the
twenty-third in descent, when a new race, headed by Sanaka and
Sheshnag, about six hundred years before Christ, usurped the seat of
the lineage descendants of Puru ; in which line of usurpation is
Chandragupta, of the tribe Maurya, Alexander, a branch of this
Sheshnag, Takshak, or Snake race, a race whicli, stripped of its
symbol, will afford room for successive exposition.
The Prasioi of Arrian would be the stock of Puru j Prayag is claimed
in the annals yet existing as the cradle of their race.
This is the modern Allahabad ;
and the Eranaboas must be the Jumna, and the point of junction with
the Ganges, where we must place the capital of the Prasioi. [For
Sandrokottos or Chandragupta Maurya see Smith, EIII, 42 ff. He
certainly did not belong to the ' Snake Race.' The Erannoboas (Skr.
Indraprastha remained without a sovereign, supreme power
being removed from the north to the southern parts of India, till the
fourth, or, according to some authorities, the eighth century after
Vikrama, when the throne of Yudhishthira was once more occupied by the
Tuar tribe of Rajputs, claiming descents from the Pandus.
To this ancient capital, thus refounded, the new appellation of Delhi
was given ; and the dynasty of the founder, Anangpal, lasted to the
twelfth century, when he abdicated in favour of his grandson,
Prithiviraja, the last imperial Rajput sovereign of India, whose
defeat and death introduced the Muhammadans.
This line has also closed with the pageant of a prince, and a colony
returned from the extreme west is now the sole arbiter of the thrones
of Pandu and Timur.
Kaliyuga and the iron age
Britain has become heir to the monuments of Indraprastha raised by the
descendants of Buddha and Ila ; to the iron pillar of the Pandavas, "
whose pedestal is fixed in hell " ; to the columns reared to victory,
inscribed with characters yet unknown ; to the massive ruins of its
ancient continuous cities, encompassing a space still larger than the
largest city in the world, whose mouldering domes and sites of
fortresses,' the very names of which are His daughter's son.
This is not the first or only instance of the SaUc law of India being
set aside. There are two in the history of the sovereigns of Anhilwara
Patan. In all adoptions of this nature, when the child
' binds round his head the turban ' of his adopted father, he is
finally severed from the stock whence he had his birth. [For the
early history of Delhi see Smith, EHI, 386 ff.]
The khil, or iron pillar of the Pandus, is mentioned in the poems of
Chand. An infidel Tuar prince wished to prove the truth of the
tradition of its depth of foundation : " blood gushed up from the
earth's centre, the pillar became loose (dhili)," as did the fortune
of the house from such impiety.
This is the origin of Delhi. [The inscription on the pillar proves the
falsity of the legend, and the name Delhi is older than the Tuar
dynasty {/G/, xi.233).]
Author doubt if Shahpur is yet known. Author traces its extent from
the remains
of a tower between Humayun's tomb and the grand column, the Kutb.
IN 1809 HE RESIDED FOUR MONTHS AT THE MAUSOLEUM OF SAFDAR JANG, THE
ANCESTOR OF THE PRESENT [LATE] KING OF OUDH.
AMIDST THE RUINS OF INDRAPRASTHA, SEVERAL MILES FROM INHABITED DELHI,
BUT WITH WHICH THESE RUINS FORMS DETACHED LINKS OF CONNEXION.
Surveying the canals which had their sources in common from the head
of the Jumna, where this river leaves its rocky barriers, the Siwalik
chain, and issues into the plains of Hindustan.
These canals on GENEALOGIES 3D lost, present a noble field for
speculation on the ephemeral nature of power and glory.
What monument would Britain bequeath to distant posterity of her
succession to this dominion ?
NOT ONE : EXCEPT IT BE THAT OF A STILL LESS PERISHABLE NATURE, THE
MONUMENT OF NATIONAL BENEFIT. MUCH IS IN OUR POWER : MUCH HAS BEEN
GIVEN, AND POSTERITY WILL DEMAND THE RESULT.
Princes of the Solar Line.—Vyasa gives but fifty-seven prhiccs of the
Solar line, from Vaivaswata Manu to Rama ; and no list which has come
under my observation exhibits more than fiftyeight,
for the same period, of the Lunar race.
How different from the Egyptian priesthood, who, according to
Herodotus, gave a list up to that period of three hundred and thirty
sovereigns from their first prince, also the ' sun-born ^ Menes !
'
Ikshwaku was the son of Manu, and the first who moved to the eastward,
and founded Ayodhya.
Budha (Mercury) founded the Lunar line ; but we are not told who
established their first capital, Prayag,' though we are authorized to
infer that it was founded by Puru, the sixth in descent from Budha
A succession of fifty-seven princes occupied Ayodhya from Ikshwaku to Rama.
From Yayati's sons the Lunar races descend each side, fed by the
parent stream, returned the waters again into it ; one through the
city of Delhi, the other on the opposite side. [Cunningham (ASR, i.
207 £f.) proved that the true site of the ancient city, Siri, was the
old ruined fort to the north-east of Ral Pithora's stronghold, which
is at present called Shahpur. This identification has been disputed by
C. J. Campbell (JASB, 1866, p. 206). But Cunningham gives good reasons
for maintaining his opinion.
The place took its name from Sher Shah and his son Islam or Salim
Shah. See also Carr stephens, Archaeological and Monumental Remains
of DeUii (1876), pp. 87 f., 190.]
1 Herodotus ii. 99, 100.
2 The Egyptians claim the sun, also, as the first founder of the kingdom
of Egypt.
' The Jaisalmer annals give in succession Prayag, Mathura, Kusasthala,
Dwaraka, as capitals of the Indu or Lunar race, in the ages preceding
the Bharat or Great War.
Hastinapur was founded twenty generations after , these, in unequal
lengths. The lines from Yadu,^ concluding with Krishna and his cousin
Kansa, exhibit fifty-seven and fifty-nine
descents from Yayati ; while Yudhishthira,' Salya,' Jarasandha,* and
Vahurita,* all contemporaries of Krishna and Kansa, are fifty-one,
forty-six, and forty-seven generations respectively, from the common
ancestor Yayati.
Solar and Lunar Genealogies.—There is a wide difference between the
Solar and the Yadu branches of the Lunar lines ; Solar line give
fifty-six, and of the Limar (Budha to Yudhishthira) forty-six, being
one less in each than in the tables now presented ; nor has he given
the important branch terminating with Krishna. So close an affinity
between lists, derived from such different authorities as this
distinguished character and myself had access to, shows that there was
some general source entitled to credit.
the thirty second prince of the Solar line, the contemporary of the
Lunar line, the sixth in descent from Sahasra Arjuna, who had five
sons preserved from the general slaughter of the military class by
Parasurama, whose names are given in the Bhavishya Purana.
Wars were constantly carried on between these great rival races, Surya
and Indu, recorded in the Puranas and Ramayana.
The Bhavishya describes that between Sagara and Talajangha [The
tragical story of Harischandra is told by J. Muir, Original Sanskrit
Texts, i. 88 ff.]
Important knowledge and the veil of ignorance of the creators creation lies here
Sahyadri Khanda of the Skanda Purana.
' In the Bhavishya Purana this prince, Sahasra-Arjuna, is termed a
Chakravartin, or paramount sovereign. It is said that iie conquered Karkotaka
of the Takshak, Turushka, or Snake race,
and brought with him the population of Mahishmati, and founded
Hemanagara in the north of India, on his expulsion from his dominions
on the Nerbudda. Traditionary legends yet remain of this prince on the
Nerbudda, where be is styled Sahasrabahu, or ' with a thousand arms,'
figurative of his numerous progeny.
The Takshak, or Snake race, here alluded to, will hereafter engage
our attention.
The names of animals in early times, planets, and things inanimate,
all furnished symbolic appellations for the various races.
In Scrii^ture we have the fly, the bee, the ram to describe the
princes of Egypt, Assyria, and Macedonia ; here we have the snake,
horse, monkey, etc.
The Snake or Takshak race was one of the most extensive and earliest
of Higher Asia, and celebrated in all its extent, . [By the Takshak
race, so often referred to, the author seems to mean a body of
Scythian snake-worshippers.
There are instances of a serpent barrow, and of the use of the snake
as a form of ornament among the Scythians ; but bej'ond this the
evidence of worship of the serpent is scanty (E. H. Minns, Scythians
and Greeks, 328 f., 66 note, 294, 318, 323, etc.).
It was really the Takka, a Panjab tribe (Beal, Si-yu-ki, i. 165 ft". ;
Cunningham,
Ancient Geography of India, 148 ff. ; Stein, Rdjatarangini, i. 204 f.).]
In the Ramayana it is stated that the sacrificial horse was stolen by
" a serpent (suffered as severely as before." But that they had
recovered all their power since Parasuraina is evident from their
having completely retaliated on the Suryas, and expelled the father
of Sagara from his capital of Ayodhya. Sagara and Talajangha appear to
have been contemporary with Hastin of Hastinapura, and with Anga,
descended from Budha, the founder of Angadesa, or Ongdesa, and the
Anga race.
Ambarisha.—The Ramayana affords another synchronism ; namely, that
Ambarisha of Ayodhya, the fortieth prince of the Solar line, was the
contemporary of Gadhi, the foimder of Kanauj,
and of Lomapada the Prince of Angadesa.
Krishna.—The last synchronism is that of Krishna and Yudhishthira,
which terminates the [37] brazen, and introduces the Kali Yuga or iron
age.
But this is in the Lunar line ; difference between the appearance of
Rama of the Solar and Krishna of the Lunar races.
THUS OF THE RACE OF KROSTU WE HAVE KANSA, PRINCE OF MATHURA, THE
FIFTY-NINTH, AND HIS COUSIN KRISHNA, THE FIFTY-EIGHTH FROM BUDDHA ;
WHILE OF THE HNE OF PURU, DESCENDING THROUGH AJAMIDHA AND DVIMIDHA,
WE HAVE SALYA, JARASANDHA, AND YUDHLSHTHIRA.
THE FIFTY-FLRST FIFTY-THIRD, AND FIFTY-FOURTH RESPECTIVELY.
THE RACE OF ANGA GIVES PRITHUSENA AS ONE OF THE ACTORS AND
SURVIVORS OF THE MAHABHARATA, AND THE FIFTY-THIRD FROM BUDHA.
THUS, TAKING AN AVERAGE OF THE WHOLE, WE MAY CONSIDER FIFTYFIVE
PRINCES TO BE THE NUMBER OF DESCENTS FROM BUDHA TO KRISHNA
" ASITA, THE FATHER OF SAGARA, EXPELLED BY HOSTILE KINGS OF THE
HAIHAJ'AS, THE TALAJANGHAS, AND THE SASA-VINDUS, FLED TO THE HIMAVAT
MOUNTAINS, WHEI'O HE DIED, LEAVING HIS WIVES PREGNANT, AND FROM ONE OF
THESE SAGARA WAS BORN "
(RAMAYANA, I. 41).
IT WAS TO PRESERVE THE SOLAR RACE FROM THE DESTRUCTION
WHICH THREATENED IT FROM THE PROHFIC LUNAR RACE, THAT THE BRAHMAN
PARASURAMA ARMED : EVIDENTLY PROVING THAT THE BRAHMANICAI FAITH WAS
HELD BY
THE SOLAR RACE ; A BRILLIANT PLAY WHILE THE REHGION OF BUDHA, THE
GREAT PROGENITOR OF THE LUNAR, STILL GOVERNED HIS DESCENDANTS.
THIS STRENGTHENED THE OPPOSITION OF THE SAGES OF THE SOLAR LINE TO
VISHVAMITRA'S (OF BUDHA'S OR THE LUNAR LINE) OBTAINING BRAHMANHOOD.
That Krishna, of Lunar stock, prior to founding a new sect, worshipped
Budha, is susceptible of proof.
Angdcs, Ongdes, or Undes adjoins Tibet. The inhabitants call
themselves Hungias, and appear to be the Hong-niu of the Chinese
authors, the Huns (Huns) of Europe and India, which prove this Tartar
race to be Lunar, and of Budha. [Anga, the modern Bhagalpur, is
confounded with Hundes or Tibet.]
THE FOUNDATION OF ANCIENT CITIES
Proper of these two grand races, distinctively called those of Surj^a
and Chandra, at about 2256 years before the Christian era ; at which
period, though somewhat later, the Egyptian, Chinese, and Assyrian
monarchies are generally stated to have been established,^ and about a
century and a half after that great event, the Flood.
Though a passage in the Agni Purana indicates that the line of Suraj ,
of which Ikshwaku was the head, was the first colony which entered
India from Central Asia, yet we are compelled to place the patriarch
Budha as his contemporary, he being stated to have come from a distant
region, and married to Ila, the sister of Ikshwaku.
Ere we proceed to make any remarks on the descendants of Krishna and
Arjuna, who carry on the Lunar line, or of the Kushites and Lavites,
from Kusa and Lava, the sons of Rama, who carry on that of the Sun, a
few observations on the chief
kingdoms established by their progenitors on the continent of India
will be hazarded in the ensuing Chapter [38].
AYODHYA.
first city founded by the race of Surya. Like other capitals, its
importance must have risen by ^ Egyptian, under Misraim, 2188 b.c. ;
Assyrian, 2059 ; Chinese, 2207.
[The first Egyptian dynasty is now dated 5500 B.C. ; Chinese, 2852 B.C. ;
Babylonian, 2300 B.C. )
The picture drawn by Valmiki of the capital of the Solar race is so
highly coloured
That Ayodhya might stand for Utopia, and it would be difficult to find
such a catalogue of metropolitan embellishments in this, the iron age
of Oudh.
" ON THE BANKS OF THE SURAYU IS A LARGE COUNTRY CALLED KOSALA, IN
WHICH IS AYODHYA, BUILT BY MANN, TWELVE YOJANS (FORTYEIGHT MILES) IN
EXTENT, WITH STREETS REGULAR AND WELL WATERED. IT WAS FILLED WITH
MERCHANTS, BEAUTIFIED BY GARDENS, ORNAMENTED WITH STATELY GATES AND
HIGH-ARCHED PORTICOES, FURNISHED V/ITH ARMS, CROWDED WITH CHARIOTS,
ELEPHANTS, AND HORSES, AND WITH AMBASSADORS FROM FOREIGN LANDS ;
EMBEUISBED WITH PALACES WHOSE DOMES RESEMBLED THE MOUNTAIN TOPS,
DWELLINGS OF EQUAL HEIGHT, RESOUNDING WITH THE DELIGHTFUL MUSIC OF THE
TABOR, THE FLUTE, AND THE HARP.
Surpur.—We are assured by Alexander's historians that the country and
people round Mathura, when he invaded India, were termed Surasenoi.
There are two princes of the name of Sursen in the immediate ancestry
of Krishna ; one his grandfather, the other eight generations anterior
Which of these ounded the capital Surpur/ whence the country and
inhabitants had their appellation, we cannot say Mathura and
Cleisobara are mentioned by the historians of Alexander as the chief
cities of the Surasenoi. Though the Greeks sadly disfigure names, we
cannot trace any affinity between Cleisobara and Surpur.
Hastinapura.—The city of Hastinapura …………….was built by Hastin a name
celebrated in the Lunar dynasties. The name of this city is still
preserved on the Ganges, about forty miles south of…………….Hardwar,
where the Ganges breaks through the Siwalik mountains………………..and
enters the plains of India.
This mighty stream, rolling its masses of waters from the glaciers of
the Himalaya, and joined
by many auxiliary streams, frequently carries destruction before it.
In one night a column of thirty feet in perpendicular height has been
known to bear away all within its sweep, and to such an occurrence the
capital of Hastin is said to have owed its ruin.
As it existed, however, long after the Mahabharata, it is surprising
it is not mentioned by the historians of Alexander, who invaded India
probably about eight centuries after that event.
In this abode of the sons of Puru resided Porus, one of the two
princes of that name, opponents of Alexander, and probably Bindusara
the son of Chandragupta, surmised to be the Abisares
and Sandrakottos of Grecian authorities.
Of the two princes named Porus mentioned by Alexander's [41]
historians, one resided in the very cradle of the Puru dynasties ;
the abode of the other bordered on the Panjab : warranting an
assertion that the Pori of Alexander were of the Lunar race, and
destroying all the claims various authors * have advanced on behalf of
the princes of Mewar.*
Hastin sent forth three grand branches, Ajamidha, Dvimidha, and Purumidha.
Of the two last we lose sight altogether ; but Ajamidha's progeny
spread over all the northern parts of India, in the Panjab and across
the Indus. The period, probably one thousand six hundred years before
Christ.
The portal of Hari or Hara, whose trisula or trident is there.
Wilford says this event is mentioned in two Puranas as occurring in
the sixth or eighth generation of the Great War. Those who have
travelled in the Duab must have remarked where both the Ganges and
Jumna have
shifted their beds. ' [Abisares is Abhisara in the modern Kashmir
State (Smith, EHI, 59).]
* Sir Thomas Roe ; Sir Thomas Herbert ; the Holstein ambassador (by
Olearius) ; Delia Valle ; Churchill, in his collection : and borrowing
from these, D'Anville, Bayer, Orme, Rennell, etc.
'' The ignorance substantiated ; but the race of Surya was completely
eclipsed at that period by the Lunar and new races BECAME THE
history of Northern India.
This is the Kausika dynasty.
Kanauj.—Kusa had four sons, two of whom, Kusanablia and kusamba, are
well known to traditional history, and by the still surviving cities
founded by them. Kusanabha founded the city of Mahodaya on the Ganges,
afterwards changed to Kanyakubja, or Kanauj, which maintained its
celebrity until the Muhammadan invasion of Shihabu-d-din (a.d. 1193),
when this overgrown city was laid prostrate for ever. It was not
unfrequently called Gadhipura, or the ' city of Gadhi.
' This practice of multiplying names of cities in the east is very
destructive to history.
Abu-1 Fazl has taken from Hindu authorities an account of Kanauj ; and
could we admit the authority of a poet on such subjects, Chand, the
bard of Prithwiraja,* would afford materials.
ANOTHER ERA
Kusamba also founded a city, called after his own name ^ Ajamidha, by
his wife Nila, had five sons, who spread their branches (Sakha) on
both sides the Indus.
Regarding three the Puranas are silent, which impHes their migration
to distant regions. Is it possible they might be the origin of the
Medes ? Tliese Medes are descendants of Yayati, third son of the
patriarch Manu ; and Madai, founder of the Medes, was of Japhet's
line. Ajamidha, the patronymic of the branch of Bajaswa, is from Aja,
' a goat.' The Assyrian Mode, in Scripture, is typified by the goat.
[These speculations are worthless.]
Of this house was Draupadi, the wife, in common, of the five Pandava
brothers : manners peculiar to Scythia.
King of Delhi.
THE FOUNDATION OF ANCIENT CITIES
Kaiisambi.^ The name was in existence in the eleventh century ; and
ruins might yet exist, if search were made on the shores of the
Ganges, from Kanauj southward.
Kuru had two sons, Sudhanush and Parikhshita. The descendants of the
former terminated with Jarasandha, whose capital was Rajagriha (the
modern Rajmahal) on the Ganges, in the province
of Bihar.
From Parikhshita descended the monarchs Santanu and Balaka : the first
producing the rivals of the Great War, Yudhishthira and Duryodhana ;
the other the Balakaputras.
Duryodhana, the successor to the throne of Kuru, resided at the
ancient capital, Hastinapura ;
while the junior branch, Yudhishthira, founded Indraprastha, on the
Yamuna or Jumna, which name in the eighth century was changed to
Delhi.
The sons of Balaka founded two kingdoms : Palibothra, on the lower
Ganges ; and Aror,' on the eastern bank of the Indus, founded by Sahl
. ^ An inscription was discovered at Kara on the Ganges, in which
Yaspal is mentioned as prince of the realm of Kausambi {As. Res. vol.
ix. p. 440). WiKord, in his Essay on the Geography of the Purans, says
" Causambi,
near Alluhabad " {As. Res. vol. xiv.). [The site is uncertain (Smith, EHI,
29.3, note).] ^ [Rajglr in Patna District.]
' Aror, or Alor, was the capital of Sind in remote antiquity : a
bridge over the stream which branched from the Indus, near Dara, is
almost the sole vestige of this capital of the Sogdoi of Alexander. On
its site the shepherds of the desert have estabhshed an extensive
hamlet ; it is placed on a ridge of siliceous rock, seven miles east
of the insular Bakhar, and free
from the inundations of the Indus.
The Sodha tribe, a powerful branch of the Pramara race, has ruled in
these countries from remote antiquity, and to a very late period they
were lords of Umarkot and Umrasurara, in which divisions was Aror.
Sahl and his capital were known to Abu-1 Fazl, though he was ignorant
of its position, which he transferred to Debal, or Dewal, the modern
Tatta. This indefatigable historian thus describes it :
'' In ancient times there lived a raja named Siharas (Sahl), whose
capital was Alor, and his dominions extended north to Kashmir and
south to the ocean " [Atn, ii. 343]. Sahl, or Sahr, becaine a titular
appellation of the country, its princes, and its inhabitants, the
Sehraes. [See p. 21 above.]
The hearts of the Kurus ^ burned with envy at the assumption of
supremacy by the Pandus, for the Prmce of Hastinapura's office was to
serve out the sacred food The rivalry between the races burst forth
afresh ; but Duryodhana, who so often failed in his schemes against
the safety of his antagonists, determined to make the virtue of
Yudhishthira the instrument of his success.
He availed himself of the national propensity for play, in which the
Rajput continues to preserve his Scythic resemblance.
Yudhishthira fell into the snare prepared for him. He lost his
kingdom, his wife, and even his
personal liberty and that of his brothers, for twelve years, and
became an exile from the plains of the Yamuna.
The traditional historY of these wanderers during the term of
probation, their many lurking jilaces now sacred, the return to their
ancestral abodes, and the grand battle (Mahabharata) which ensued,
form highly interesting episodes in the legends of Hindu antiquity.
To decide this civil strife, every tribe and chief of fame, from the
Caucasus to the ocean, assembled on Kurukshetra, the field Sacrifice
of the horse to the sun, of which a full description is given
hereafter.
DURYODHANA, AS THE ELDER ))RANCH, RETAINED HIS TITLE AS HEAD OF THE
KURUS ; WHILE THE JUNIOR, YUDHISHTHIRA, ON THE SEPARATION OF
AUTHORITY, ADOPTED HIS FATHER'S NAME, PANDU, AS THE PATRONYMIC OF HIS
NEW DYNASTY.
THE SITE OF THE GREAT CONFLICT (OR MAHABHARATA) BETWEEN THESE RIVAL
CLANS, IS CALLED KURUKSHETRA, OR ' FIELD OF THE KURUS.'
* Herodotus describes the ruinous passion for play amongst the Scythic
hordes, and which may have been carried west by Odin into
Scandinavia…………….and Germany. Tacitus tells us that the Germans, like
the Pandus, staked
even iiersonal liberty, and were sold as slaves by the winner [Germania, 24].
LATER DYNASTIES on which the empire of India has since more than once
been contested ^ and lost. This combat was fatal to the dominant
influence of the " fiftysix tribes of Yadu." On each of its eighteen
days' combat, myriads were slain ; for " the father knew not the son,
nor the disciple his preceptor."
Victory brought no happiness to Yudhishthira. The slaughter of his
friends disgusted him with the world, and he determined to withdraw
froM it ;
Previously performing, at Hastinapura, funeral rites for Duryodhana
(slain by the hands of Bhima), those ambition and bad faith had
originated this exterminating War.
" Having regained his kingdom, he proclaimed a new era, and placing on
the throne of Indraprastha, Parikshita, grandson to Arjuna, Retired
to Dwarka with kjrislina and Baldeva : and since the war to the period
of writing, 4638 j^ears have elapsed." –
Yudhishthira, Baldeva, and Krishna, having retired with the Wreck of
this ill-fated struggle to Dwarka, the two former had Soon to lament
the death of Krishna, slain by one of the aboriginal tribes of Bhils
;
After This Event, Yudhishthira, With Baldeva And A Few Followers,
Entirely Withdrew From India, And Emigrating Northwards, By Sind, To
The Himalayan
Mountains, Are There Abandoned By Hindu Traditional History,
And Are Supposed To Have Perished In The Snows.'
On It The Last Hindu Monarch, Prithwiraja, Lost His Kingdom, His Hberty,
And Life.
Rajatarangini. The period of writing was a.d. 1740. ; Amidst the
snows of Caucasus,
Hindu legend abandons the Harikulas, under their leaders Yudhishthira
and Baldeva : yet if Alexander estabhshed his altars in Panchala,
amongst the sons of Puru and the Harikulas, what physical
impossibility exists that a colony of them, under Yudhishthira and
Baldeva, eight centuries anterior, should have penetrated to Greece ?
Comparatively far advanced in science and arms, the conquest would
have been easy. When Alexander attacked the ' free cities ' of
Panchala, the Purus and Harikulas who opposed him
evinced the recollections of their ancestor, in carrying the figure of
Hercules as their standard. Comparison proves a common origin to
Hindu and Grecian mythology ; and Plato says the Greeks had theirs
from Egypt and the East.
May not this colony of the Harikulas be the Herachdae, who penetrated
into the Peloponnesus (according to Volney) 1078 years before Christ,
sufficiently near our calculated period of the Great War ? The Herachdae
claimed from Atreus : the Harikxilas claim from Atri. Eurysthenes was
From Parikshita, who succeeded Yudhishthira, to Vikramaditya,
four ^ dynasties are given in a continuous chain, exhibiting
sixty-six princes to Rajpal, who, invading Kumaon, was slain by
Sukwanti. The Kumaun conqueror seized upon Delhi, but was
soon dispossessed by Vikramaditya, who transferred the seat of
imperial power from Indraprastha to Avanti, or Ujjain, from
which time it became the first meridian of the Hindu astronomy.
Indraprastha ceased to be a regal abode for eight centuries,
when it was re-established by Anangpal,^ the founder of the Tuar
race, claiming descent from the Pandus. Then the name of Delhi
superseded that of Indraprastha.
the first king of the HeracUdae : Yudhishthira has suflEicient affinity in
name to the first Spartan king not to startle the etymologist, the d and
r being always permutable in Sanskrit. The Greeks or lonians are descended
from Yavan, or Javan, the seventh from Japhet.
The Herculas are also Yavans claiming from Javan or Yavan, the
thirteenth in descent
from Yayati, the third son of the primeval patriarch.
The ancient Heraclidae of Greece asserted they were as old as the
sun, and older than the
moon. May not this boast conceal the fact that the Heliadae (or Suryctvansa)
of Greece had settled there anterior to the colony of the Indu (Lunar)
race of Harikula ? In all that relates to the mythological history of the
Indian demi-gods, Baldeva (Hercules), Krishna or Kanhaiya (Apollo), and
Budha (Mercury), a powerful and almost perfect resemblance can be traced
))etween those of Hindu legend, Greece, and Egypt. Baldeva (the god of
strength) Harikula, is still worshipped as in the days of Alexander ; his
shrine at Baldeo in Vraj (the Surasenoi of the Greeks), his club a ploughshare,
and a lion's skin his covering. A Hindu intaglio of rare value
represents Hercules exactly as described by Arrian, with a monogram consisting
of two ancient characters now unknown, but which I have found
wherever tradition assigns a spot to the Harikulas ; especially in Saurashtra,
where they were long concealed on their exile from Delhi. This we may
at once decide to be the exact figure of Hercules which Arrian describes
his descendants to have carried as their standard, when Porus opposed
Alexander. The intaglio will appear in the Trans. li.A.S. [The speculations
in this note have no authority.]
^ The twenty-eighth prince, Khemraj, was the last in lineal descent from
Parikshita, the grand-nephew of Yudhishthira. The first dynasty lasted
1 864 years. The second dynasty was of Visarwa, and consisted of fourteen
princes ; this lasted five hundred years. The third dynasty was headed by
Mahraj, and terminated by Antinai, the fifteenth prince. The fourth
dynasty was headed by Dudhsen, and terminated by Rajpal, the ninth and
last king (Rajatarangini).
'^ The Rajatarangini gives the date A.v. 848, or a.v. 792, for this ; and
adds : " Princes from Siwalik, or northern hills, held it during this time,
and it long continued desolate until the Tuars."
LATER DYNASTIES
" Sukwanti, a prince from the northern mountains of Kumaun,
ruled fourteen [52] years, when he was slain by Vikramaditya ; ^
and from the Bharat to this period 2915 years have elapsed." *
Such a period asserted to have elapsed while sixty-six princes
occupied the throne, gives an average of forty-four years to each ;
which is incredible, if not absolutely impossible.
In another passage the compiler says : " I have read many
books (shastras), and all agreed to make one hundred princes,
all of Khatri ^ race, occupy the throne of Delhi from Yudhishthira
to Pritliwiraja, a period of 4100 years,* after which the Ravad *
race succeeded."
It is fortunate for these remnants of historical data that thej^
have only extended the duration of reigns, and not added more
heads. Sixty-six links are quite sufficient to connect Yudhishthira
and Vikramaditya.
one hundred kings, from Yudhish thira to Prithwiraja : the result will
be 2250 years.
* 'J'his period of 4100 years may have been arrived at by the compiler
taking for granted the number of years mentioned by Raghunath as having
elapsed from the Mahabharata to Vikrainaditya, namely 291.5, and adding
thereto the well-authenticated period of Prithwiraja, who was born in
iSamvat 1215 : for if 2915 be subtracted from 4100, it leaves 1185, the period
within thirty years of the birth of Prithwiraja, according to the Chauhan
chronicles.
* Solar.
* From S. 1250, or a.d. 1194, captivity and dethronement of Pritliwiraja.
' From S. 1212, a.d. 1516, the founding of Jaisalmer by Jaisal, to the
accession of Gaj Singh, the present prince, in S. 1876, or a.d. 1820.
already decided on must be applied ; which will yield 1704 years,
being six hundred and four after Vikramaditya, whose contemporary
will thus be Basdeva, the fifty-fifth prince from Sahadeva
of the sixth dynasty, said to be a conqueror from the country of
Katehr [or Rohilkhand].
If these calculations possess any value, the genealogies of the
Bhagavat are brought down to the close of the fifth century following
Vikramaditya.
As we cannot admit the gift of prophecy to the compilers of these
books, we may infer that they remodelled their ancient chronicles
during the reign of
Susarman, about the year of Vikrama 600, or a.d. 540.
With regard to calculations already adduced, as to the average
number of years for the reigns of the foregoing dynasties, a comparison
with those which history affords of other parts of the
world will supply the best criterion of the correctness of the
assumed data.
From the revolt of the ten tribes against Rehoboam ^ to the
capture of Jerusalem, a period of three hundred and eighty-seven
years, twenty kings sat on the throne of Judah, making each reign
nineteen and a half years ; but if we include the three anterior
reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon, prior to the revolt, the result
will be twenty-six and a half years each.
From the dismemberment of the Assjrrian empire under
Sardanapalus, nearly nine hundred years before Christ, the three
consequent confluent dynasties of Babylonia, Assyria, and Media
afford very different results for comparison.
The Assyrian preserves the medium, while the Babylonish and
Median run into extremes. Of the nine princes who swayed
Babylon, from the period of its separation from, till its reunion
to Assyria, a space of fifty-two years, Darius, who ruled sixty
[thirty-six] years , outhved the whole.
Of the line of Darius there were but six princes, from the separation
of the kingdoms to their reunion imder Cyrus, a period of one hundred
and seventy-four years, or twenty-nine to each reign.
The Assjo-ian reigns form a juster medium. From Nebuchadnezzar
to Sardanapalus we have twenty-two years to a reign ;
but from thence to the extinction of this dynasty, eighteen.
The first eleven kings, the Heraclidae of Laced aemon, com-
^ 987 years l^efore Christ.
For these and tV.e following elates I am indebted to Goguet's chronological
tables in his Origin of Laws.
LATER DYNASTIES
COMMEncing with Eiirysthenes (1078 before Christ),
average thirtytwo years ;
while in repubhcan Athens, nearly contemporary^
from the first perpetual archon until the office became decennial
in the seventh Olympiad, the reigns of the twelve chief magistrates
average twenty-eight years and a half.
Thus we have three periods, Jewish, Spartan, and Athenian,
each commencing about eleven hundred years before Christ, not
half a century remote from the Mahabharata ; with those of
Babylonia, Assyria, and Media, commencing where we quit the
Grecian, in the eighth century before the Christian era, the Jewish
ending in the sixth century.
However short, compared with our Solar and Lunar dynasties,
yet these, combined WITH the average reigns of existing Hindu
dynasties, will aid the judgment in estimating the periods to be
assigned to the lines thus afforded, instead of following the
improbable value attached by the Brahmans.
FROM SUCH DATA, LONGEVITY APPEARS IN UNISON WITH CLIMATE AND
SIMPLICITY OF LIFE : THE SPARTAN YIELDING THE MAXIMIMI OF THIRTY TWO
TO A REIGN, WHILE THE MORE LUXURIOUS ATHENS GIVES TWENTY EIGHT AND A
HALF. THE JEWS, FROM SAUL T6 THEIR EXILE " TO THE WATERS OF BABYLON,"
TWENTY-SIX AND A HALF. THE MEDES EQUAL THE LACEDAEMONIANS, AND IN ALL
HISTORY CAN ONLY BE PARALLELED BY THE PRINCES OF ANHILWARA, ONE OF
WHOM, CHAWAND, ALMOST EQUALED DARIUS.
Of the separated ten tribes, from the revolt to the captivity,
twenty kings of Israel passed away in two centuries, or ten years
EXILE
The Spartan and Assyrian present the extremes of
thirty-two
and eighteen, giving a medium of twenty-five years to a reign.
The average result of our four Hindu dynasties, in a period of
nearly seven hundred years, is twenty-two years.
From all which data, twenty to twenty-two years to each reign in lines
of fifty princes .
If the value thus obtained be satisfactory, and the lines of
dynasties derived from so many authorities correct, we shall
arrive at the same conclusion with Mr. Bentley ; who, by the
more philosophical process of astronomical and genealogical
^ [It is not clear to whom the author refers ; Chamunda Chavada (a.d.
880-908): or Chamunda Chauhikya (a.d. 997-1010), {EG, i. Part 1. 151,
162).]
combination, places Yudhishtliira's era in the year 2825 of the world ;
which being taken from 4004
(the world's age at the birth of Christ) will leave 1179 before
Christ for Yudhishthira's era, or 1123 before Vikramaditya.^
Rajputs and Mongols.—Having thus brought down the genealogical
history of the ancient martial races of India, from the earliest
period to Yudhishthira and Krishna, and thence to Vikramaditya
and the present day, a few observations on the races invading
India during that time, and now ranked amongst the thirty-six
royal races of Rajasthan,
The tribes here alluded to are the Haihaya or Aswa, the Takshak,
and the Jat or Getae ; the similitude of whose theogony, names
in their early genealogies, and many other points, with the Chinese,
Tatar, Mogul, Hindu, and Scythic races, would appear to warrant
the assertion of one common origin.
Though the periods of the passage of these tribes into India
cannot be stated with exactitude, the regions whence they migrated
may more easily be ascertained.
Mongol Origin.—Let us compare the origin of the Tatars and
Moguls, as given by their historian, Abulghazi, with the races we
have been treating of from the Puranas.
Mogol was the name of the Tatarian patriarch. His son was
Aghuz,'' the founder of all the races of those northern regions,
called Tatars and Mogol [57]. Aghuz had six sons.^ First, Kun,*
' the sun,' the Surya of the Puranas ; secondly, Ai,^ ' the moon,'
^ [The evidence quoted in this chapter bj^ which the author endeavours
1 1 frame a chronology for this early period, is untrustworthy. Mr. Pargiter
tentatively dates the great Bharata battle about 1000 B.C., but the
evidence is very uncertain {JRAS, January 1910, p. 56 ; April 1914, p.
294).] ^ Query, if from Mogol and Aghuz, compounded, we have not the
Magog, son of Japhet, of Scripture ?
^ The other four sons are the remaining elements, personified : whence
the six races of Tatars.
The Hindus had long but two races, till the four
AgnOcula made them also six,
and now thirty-six !
* In Tatar, according to Abulghazi, the sun and moon.
^ De Giiignes.
I
MONGOL AND HINDU TRADITIONS 69
THE INDU OF THE PURANAS. IN THE LATTER, AI, WE HAVE EVEN THE
SAME NAME [AYUS] AS IN THE PURANAS FOR THE LUNAR ANCESTOR.
THE TATARS ALL CLAIM FROM AI, ' THE MOON,' THE INDUS OF THE PURANAS.
HENCE WITH THEM, AS WITH THE GERMAN TRIBES, THE MOON WAS ALWAYS
A MALE DEITY. THE TATAR AI HAD A SON, YULDUZ.
HIS SON^WAS HYU, FROM WHOM ^ CAME THE FIRST RACE OF THE KINGS OF
CHINA. THE PURANIC AYUS HAD A SON, YADU (PRONOUNCED JADON) ; FROM
WHOSE THIRD SON, HAYA, THE HINDU GENEALOGIST DEDUCES NO LINE, AND
FROM WHOM THE CHINESE MAY CLAIM THEIR INDU ^ ORIGIN. II KHAN
(NINTH FROM AI) HAD TWO SONS : FIRST, KIAN ; AND SECONDLY, NAGAS ;
WHOSE DESCENDANTS PEOPLED ALL TATARY.
FROM KIAN, JENGHIZ IVLIAN CLAIMED DESCENT. NAGAS WAS PROBABLJ- THE
FOUNDER OF THE TAKSHAK, OR SNAKE RACE ' OF THE PURANAS AND TATAR
GENEALOGISTS, THE TAK-I-UK MOGULS OF DE GUIGNES.
Such are the comparative genealogical origins of the three
races. Let us compare their thcogony, the fabulous birth assigned
by each for the founder of the Indu race.
Mongol and Hindu Traditions.
—1. The Puranic. " Ila {the earth), daughter of the sun-born Ikshwaku,
while wandering in the forests was encountered by Budha {Mercury),
and from the rape of Ila sprimg the Indu race."
2. The Chinese account of the birth of Yu (Ayu), their first
monarch. " A star * (Mercury or Fo) struck his mother while
journeying. She conceived, and gave to the world Yu, the
founder of the first dynasty which reigned in China. Yu divided
China into nine provinces, and began to reign 2207 ^ years before
Christ " [58].
Thus the Ai of the Tatars, the Yu of the Chinese, and the Ayus
^ Sir W. Jones says the Chinese assert their Hindu origin ; but a comparison
proves both these Indu races to be of Scj^thic origin. [Yadu was son
of Yayati, and Haya was Yadu's grandson, not son. The comparison of
Mongol with Hindu tradition is of no value.]
^ [For the Mongol genealogy see Howorth, History of the Mongols, Part i.
35. Abu-I Fazl {Akbarnama, trans. H. Beveridge, i. 171 f.) gives the names
as follows : Aghuz Khan, whose sons were—Kun (Sun) ; Ai (Moon) ; Yulduz
(Star) ; Kok or Gok (Sky) ; Tagh (Mountain) ; Tangiz (Sky)].
^ Naga and Takshak are Sanskrit names for a snake or serpent, the
emblem of Budha or Mercury. The Naga race, so well known to India,
the Takshaks or Takiuks of Scythia, invaded India about six centuries
before Clirist.
* De Guignes, Sur Us Dynasties des Huns, vol. i. p. 7.
^ Nearly the calculated period from the Puranas.
Scythian Traditions.—Let us contrast with these the origin of
the Scythic nations, as related by Diodorus ;
* when it will be observed the same legends were known to him which have been
handed down by the Puranas and Abulghazi.
" The Scythians had their first abodes on the Araxes.* Their
origin was from a virgin born of the earth of the shape of a
woman from the waist upwards, and below a serpent (symbol
of Budlia or Mercury) ;
that Jupiter had a son by her, named Scythes," whose name the nation
adopted. Scythes had two sons, Palas and Napas (qu. the Nagas, or
Snake race, of the Tatar genealogy ?), who were celebrated for their
great actions, and who divided the countries ; and the nations were
called after them, the Palians {qu. Pali ?) ' and Napians.
They led their forces as far as the Nile on Egypt, and subdued many
nations. They
enlarged the empire of the Scythians as far as the Eastern ocean,
and to the Caspian and lake INIoeotis. The nation had many kings,
from whom the Sacans (Sakae), the Massagetae ( Getae or Jats), the
Ari-aspians (Aswas of Aria), and many other races.
They overran Assyria and Media ^ [59], overturning the empire, and trans-
I^hinting the inliabitants to tlie Araxes under the name of Sauro-
Matians." ^
As the Sakae, Getae, Aswa, and Takshak are names which
have crept in amongst our thirty-six royal races, common with
others also to early civilization in Europe, let us seek further
ancient authority on the original abodes.
Strabo ^ says : " All the tribes east of the Caspian are called
Scythic. The Dahae * next the sea, the Massagetae (great Gete)
and Sakae more eastward ; but every tribe has a particular name.
All are nomadic : but of these nomads the best-known are the
Asii,^ the Pasiani, Tochari, Sacarauli, who took Bactria from the
Greeks. The Sakae " (' races ') have made in Asia irruptions
similar to those of the Cimmerians ; thus they have been seen to
possess themselves of Bactria, and the best district of Armenia,
called after them Sakasenae." '
Which of the tribes of Rajasthan are the offspring of the Aswa
and Medes, of Indu race, returned under new appellations, we
shall not now stop to inquire, limiting our hypothesis to the fact
of invasions, and adducing some evidence of such being simultaneous
with migrations of the same bands into Europe.
Hence the inference of a common origin between the Rajput and early
races of Europe ; to support which, a similar mythology, martial
manners and poetry, language, and even music and architectural
ornaments, may be adduced.^
Of the first migrations of the Indu-Scythic Getae, Takshak,
and Asii, into India, that of Sheshnag (Takshak), from Sheshnagdes
(Tocharistan ?) or Sheshnag, six centuries, by calculation,
before Christ, is the first noticed by the Puranas.^ About this
period a grand irruption of the same races conquered Asia Minor,
and [60] eventually Scandinavia ; and not long after the
Asii and Tochari overturned the Greek kingdom of Bactria, the
Romans felt the power of the Asi,' the Chatti, and Cimbri, from
the Baltic shore.
" If we can show the Germans to have been originally Scythae
or Goths (Getes or Jits), a wide field of curiosity and inquiry is
open to the origin of government, manners, etc. ; all the antiquities
of Europe will assume a new appearance, and, instead of
being traced to the bands of Germany, as Montesquieu and the
greatest writers have hitherto done, may be followed through
long descriptions of the manners of the Scythians, etc., as given
by Herodotus. Scandinavia was occupied by the Scythae five
hundred years before Christ.
These Scythians worshipped Mercury (Budha), Woden or Odin, and
believed themselves his progeny. The Gothic mythology, by parallel,
might be shown
to be Grecian, whose gods were the progeny of Coehis and Terra
(Budha and EUa).^
Dryads, satyrs, fairies, and all the Greek
and Roman superstition, may be found in the Scandinavian
creed. The Goths consulted the heart of victims^ had oracles,
had sibyls, had a Venus in Freya, and Parcae in the Valkyrie." ^
The Scythian Descent of the Rajputs.—Ere we proceed to trace
these mythological resemblances, let us adduce further opinions
in proof of the'position assumed of a common origin of the tribes
of early Europe and the Scj^thic Rajput.
The translator of Abulghazi, in his preface, observes : " Our
contempt for the Tatars would lessen did we consider how nearly
we stand related to them, and that our ancestors originally came
from the north of Asia, and that our customs, laws, and way of
living were formerly the same as theirs. In short, that we are
no other than a colony of Tatars.
" It was from Tatary those jDcople came, who, imder the successive
names of Cymbrians,* Kelts, and Gauls, possessed all the
northern part of Europe. What were the Goths, Huns, Alans,
Swedes, Vandals, Franks, but swarms of the same hive ? The
Swedish chronicles bring the Swedes * from Cashgar, and [61] the
affinity between the Saxon language and Kipchak is great ; and
the Keltick language still subsisting in Britany and Wales is a
demonstration that the inhabitants are descended from Tatar
nations."
The invasion of these Indu-Scytliic tribes, Getae, Takshaks,
Asii, Chatti, Rajpali,^ Huns, Kamari, introduced the worship of
Budha, the founder of the Indu or Lunar race.
Herodotus says the Getae were theists,^ and held the tenets
of the soul's immortality ; so with the Buddhists.
Before, however, touching on points of religious resemblance
between the Asii, Getae, or Jut of Scandinavia (who gave his
name to the Cimbric Chersonese) and the Getae of Scythia and
India, let us make a few remarks on the Asii or Aswa.
The Aswa.—To the Indu race of Aswa (the descendants of
Dvimidha and Bajaswa), spread over the countries on both sides
the Indus, do we probably owe the distinctive appellation of
Asia. Herodotus * says the Greeks denominated Asia from the
wife of Prometheus ;
while others deduce it from a grandson of
Manes, indicating the Aswa descendants of the patriarch Manu.
Asa,* Sakambhari,^ Mata,' is the divinity Hope, ' mother-protectress
of the Sakha,' or races.
Every Rajput adores Asapurna, ' the fulfiller of desire ' ; or, as
Sakambhari Devi (goddess protectress), she is invoked previous to any
undertaking.
The Aswas were chiefly of the Indu race ; yet a branch of the
Suryas also bore this designation. It appears to indicate their
celebrity as horsemen.* All of them worshipped the horse, which
they sacrificed to the sun.
The Asvamedha.—
The Asvamedha was practised on the Ganges and Sarju by the Solar
princes twelve hundred years
before Christ, as by the Getae in the time of Cyrus ; " deeming it
right," says Herodotus " to offer the swiftest of created
to the chief of uncreated beings " : and this worship and sacrifice
of the horse has been handed down to the Rajput of the present
day. A description of this grand ceremony shall close these
analogies.
The Getic Asii carried this veneration for the steed, symbolic
of their chief deity the sun, into Scandinavia : equally so of all
the early German tribes, the Su, Suevi, Chatti, Sucimbri, Getae,
in the forests of Germany, and on the banks of the Elbe and Weser.
The milk-white steed was supposed to be the organ of the gods,
calculated future events ; notions possessed also by the Aswa, sons of
Budha (Woden), on the Yamuna and Ganges, when the rocks of Scandinavia
and the
shores of the Baltic were yet untrod by man. It was this omen
which gave Darius Hystaspes (hinsna, ' to neigh,' aspa, 'a horse ')
a crown.
This is the period of the last Buddha, or Mahavira, whose era
is four hundred and seventy-seven years before Vikrama, or five
hundred and thirty-three before Christ.
The successor of Odin in Scandinavia was Gotama ; and
Gautama was the successor of the last Buddha, Mahavira,^ who
as Gotama, or Gaudama, is still adored from the Straits of Malacca
to the Caspian Sea.
The sixth century is that calculated for the Takshak from
Sheshnagdesa ; and it is on this event and reign that the Puranas
found, but that the Sudra, the Turushka, and the Yavan, would
prevail."
All these Indu-Scythic invaders held the religion of Buddha :
and hence the conformity of manners and mythology between the
Scandinavian or German tribes and the Rajputs increased by
comparing their martial poetry.
Similarity of religious manners affords stronger proofs of
original identity than language. Language is eternally changing
—so are manners ; but an exploded custom or rite traced to its
source, and maintained in opposition to climate, is a testimony
not to be rejected.
Personal Habits, Dress.—When Tacitus informs us that the first act of
a German on rising was ablution, it will be conceded
this habit was not acquired in [66] the cold climate of Germany,
but must have been of eastern ^ origin ; as were " the loose
flowing robe ; the long and braided hair, tied in a knot at the top
of the head "
; with many other customs, personal habits, and
superstitions of the Scj'thic Cimbri, Juts, Chatti, Suevi, analogous
to the Getic nations of the same name, as described by Herodotus,
Justin, and Strabo, and which yet obtain amongst the Rajput
Sakhae of the present day.
Let us contrast what history affords of resemblance in religion or
manners. First, as to religion.
Taeogony.—Tuisto (IVIercury) and Ertha (the earth) were the
chief divinities of the early German tribes. Tuisto ^ was born of
the Earth (Ila) and Manus (Manu). Ke is often confounded
with Odin, or Woden, the Budha of the eastern tribes, though
they are the Mars and Mercury of these nations.
Religious Rites.—The Suiones or Suevi, the most powerful Getie nation
of Scandinavia, were divided into many tribes, one
of whom, the Su (Yueh-chi or Jat), made human sacrifices in their
consecrated groves ^ to Ertha (Ila), whom all worshipped, and
whose chariot was drawn by a cow.
^ The Suevi worshipped Tsis (Isa, Gauri, the Isis and Ceres of
Rajasthan), in whose rites the figure of a ship is introduced ; "
symbolic," observes Tacitus,
" of its foreign origin."
The festival of Isa, or Gauri, wife of Iswara, at Udaipur, is
performed on the lake, and appears to be exactly that of Isis and
Osiriain Egypt, as described by Herodotus.
On this occasion Iswara (Osiris), who is secondary to his wife, has
a stalk of the onion in blossom in his hand ; a root detested by
the Hindus generally, though adored by the Egyptians.
Customs of War.—They sung hymns in praise of Hercules, as
well as Tuisto or Odin, whose banners and images they carried
to the field ; and fought in clans, using the feram or javelin, both
in close and distant combat.
In all maintaining [67] the resemblance
to the Harikula, descendants of Budha, and the Aswa,
offspring of Bajaswa, who peopled those regions west of the
Indus, and whose redundant population spread both east and
west.
The Suevi, or Suiones, erected the celebrated temple of Upsala,
in which they placed the statues of Thor, Woden, and Freya, the
triple divinity of the Scandinavian Asii, the Trimurti of the Solar
and Lunar races. The first (Thor, the thunderer, or god of war)
is Hara, or Mahadeva, the destroyer ; the second (Woden) is
Budha,* the preserver ; and the third (Freya) is Uma, the creative
power.
The grand festival to Freya was in spring, when all nature
revived ; then boars were offered to her by the Scandinavians,
and even boars of paste were made and swallowed by the
peasantry.
As Vasanti, or spring personified, the consort of Hara is
worshipped by the Rajput, who opens the season
The gau, or cow, symbolic of Prithivi, the earth.
* Krishna is the preserving deity of the Hindu triad. Krishna is of the
Tndu line of Budha, whom he worshipped prior to his own deification.
COMPARISON OF RAJPUTwS WITH N. EUROPEANS 81
hunt/ led by the j^rince and his vassal chiefs, when they chase,
slay, and eat the boar.
Personal danger is disregarded on this
day, as want of success is ominous that the Great Mother will
refuse all petitions throughout the year.
The religion of the martial Rajput, and the
rites of Hara, the god of battle, are little analogous to those of
1 ' Mahurat ka shikar.' 2 ^he Siebi of Tacitus.
^ Sammes's Saxon Ardiquities.
* Hara is the Thor of Scandinavia ; Hari is Budha, Hermes, or Mercury.
^ Mallet derives it from kempfer, ' to fight.' [The name is said to mean
'comrades' (Rhys, Celtic Britain, 116). Irmansul means ' a colossus,' and
has no connexion with Skr. sfda (CTrimm, Teutonic 3Iythologi/, i. 115).]
** Ku is a mere prefix, meaning ' evil ' ;
' the evil striker (Mar).' Hence,
probably, the Mars of Rome. The birth of Kumar, the general of the army
of the gods, with the Hindus, is exactly that of the Grecians, born of the
goddess Jahnavi (Juno) without sexual intercourse. Kumara is always
accompanied by the peacock, the bird of Juno. [Kumara probably means
' easily dying ' ; there is no connexion with Mars, originally a deity of
vegetation.]
' For a drawing of the Scandinavian god of battle see Sammes.
THE FOLLOWERS OF DIVINITY,
FEEDERS ON FRUITS, HERBS, AND WATER. FORGOTTEN
THE CULT OF VIOLENCE
SOME DELIGHTS IN BLOOD :
HIS OFFERINGS TO THE GOD OF BATTLE BLOOD AND WINE. THE CUP (KHARPARA)
OF LIBATION IS THE HUMAN SKULL.
HE LOVES THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE EMBLEMATIC OF THE DEITY HE WORSHIPS
; AND HE IS TAUGHT TO BELIEVE THAT HARA LOVES THEM, WHO IN WAR IS
REPRESENTED WITH SKULL TO DRINK THE FOEMAN'S BLOOD, AND IN PEACE IS
THE PATRON OF WINE AND WOMEN.
WITH PARBATI ON HIS KNEE, HIS EYES ROLLING FROM THE JUICE OF THE
PHUL (ARDENT SPIRITS) AND OPIUM, SUCH IS THIS BACCHANALIAN DIVINITY OF WAR.
Love of Strong Drink.—Love of liquor, and indulgence in it to
excess, were deep-rooted in the Scandinavian Asi and German
tribes, and in which they showed their Getic origin
^ The Sakae had invaded the inhabitants on the borders of the Pontic
Sea : whilst engaged in dividing the booty, the Persian generals surprised
them at night, and exterminated them.
To eternize the remembrance of this event, the Persians heaped up the
earth round a rock in the plain where the battle was fought, on which
they erected two temples, one to the goddess Anaitis, the other to the
divinities Omanus and Anandate, and then founded the anmial festival
called Sacaea, still celebrated by the possessors of Zela.
Such is tlie account by some authors of the origin of Sacaea. According to
others it dates from the reign of Cyrus only. This prince, they say, having
carried the war into the country of the Sakae (Massagetae of Herodotus)
lost a battle. Compelled to fall back on his magazines, abundantly stored
with provisions, but especially wine, and having halted some time to refresh
his army, he departed before the enemy, feigning a flight, and leaving his
camp standing full of provisions.
The Sakae, who pursued, reaching the abandoned camp stored with
provisions, gave themselves up to debauch.
Cyrus returned and surprised the senseless barbarians.
Some, buried in profound sleep, were easily massacred ; others occupied in
drinking and dancing, without defence, fell into the hands of armed foes :
so that all perished.
The conqueror, attributing his success to divine protection,
consecrated this day to the goddess honoured in his country, and
decreed it should be called ' the day of the Sacaea.'
The Clip of the Scandinavian worshippers of Thor, the god of
battle, was a human skull, that of the foe, in which they showed
their thirst of blood ; also borrowed from the chief of the Hindu
Triad, Hara, the god of battle, who leads his heroes in the ' red
field of slaughter ' with the kkopra ^ in his hand, with which he
gorges on the blood of the slain.
Funeral Ceremonies.—In the last rites for the dead, comparison
will yield proofs of original similarity.
The funeral ceremonies
of Scandinavia have distinguished the national eras, and
the ' age of fire ' and ' the age of hills,'
* designated the periods
when the warrior was committed to mother earth or consumed
on the pyre.
Sati.—The burning of the dead warrior, and female immolation,
or Sati, are well-known rites
* The Dakini (the Jigarkhor of Sindh) is the genuine vampire
IS THIS HINDUISM, ON THE BURNING PLAINS OF INDIA ? OR A PERFECT
PICTURE OF SCANDINAVIAN HEROES ?
THE SERPENT CREATOR GOD
References: Anals & Antiquities of Rajasthan, Wikipedia , Old World Maps
Manuscripts and Printed Reports, Field Books , Memoirs, Maps etc of
Indian Survey
World Religion and History, Religious Books, Torah, bible, Philosophy
of Buddhism, Sufism , Ancient Babylon History, Religion Studies from
Internet, Geographical Study , World Dynastys.
I am a soul returning close to the single authentic source threading the path of mysticism in the occurrence of a combined peace, joy, compassion or love. My agony between competing forces of light and dark, and positive marked division between the material kingdom, the administration of evil forces, and the higher spiritual kingdom from which it is divided. My words may seem to confuse and unclear, at the same time over-simplified and full of subtle meanings hidden from the naive.
My words are very easy to know, and easy to practice; but there is none in the world who can recognize and capable of practice them.
A dimensional fluctuation amid one construction of reality to another. I am crossed a path by sin, shame, remorse.
Repentance, awareness of lower-self attachments and dervishes giving up the thoughts and behaviors is now the necessity for reinstating unity and grace.
Mortification and dejection, defamation and allegation, abundant lives breathed, none could grasp me and in this way my voyage demands further obligation.
My ancestry and individuality is of free spirit. I question if this is a joy. The joy is of mankind shuns and Almighty embraces. That is the joy in the departure from the material release. (2009)
"Religious truth is the inner meaning of the law revealed in the heart of the Sufi by the Divine Light."
In terms of the Ultimate Reality or Truth, I have now come to reject the very basis of "manifestation" and in doing so all systems of thought and knowledge in reference to it is invalid
According to my experience there is nothing to understand about enlightenment as enlightenment is the way of enlightenment itself.
The subject of enlightenment – or anything else – did not interest me all my life ………….. My life-story can be separated into the three catastrophe parts. The first part of my life with Human experience. The second part of my life experienced a Bodily experience with a discontinuity from my human life with the ongoing bodily experience – though not absence – of thought. But I lost all connectivity with the acquired knowledge and memories, and I was made to re-learn everything, as if the slate had been wiped clean.
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